Posted By GaryC40
Several years ago, I attended a risk assessment training course, run by the local college. The college mainly caters for council workers; however courses are also available to local businesses. The objective of the course was stated in the workbook provided, it states: -
By the end of the course, all participants will be able to:
? State the basic principle of risk assessment and the stages involved in carrying out risk assessments in practice;
? describe the key legislative requirements on risk assessment;
? list a range of hazards and effective measures to control them;
? to define correctly the meaning of hazard and risk;
? carry out, record, monitor and review risk assessments.
The course was completely classroom based, except for myself and one other colleague; all delegates were local authority administration workers.
The format was simple; in the morning, we learnt about MHSAW and after this, we were all given a list of ‘common’ hazards to identify. The tutor (an qualified educator and deliverer of course material with no formal HS qual!) at no point encouraged the class to consider hazards that could exist in their own working environments, presumably because they did not match with the course work! The list of hazards we were requested to identify included, a tiger in an open cage and a loaded gun, one of the delegates cleverly pointed out that a suitable control measure would be to don Nike trainers and run away. At this point, that would not have been a bad idea…from the course!
The point I am attempting to make, is that the tutor had given little consideration to the students background, ability or experience, the exercises given throughout the day bore absolutely no relevance to the everyday hazards the class were likely to experience.
I left the course with the knowledge that a tiger and loaded gun could be extremely dangerous. This ‘new’ information was correct, however I suggest was not particularly relevant, at least not to me. A complete waste of time. This trainer now teaches HS to School kids and claims to be competent because of holding a brand new NGC. Whoooa
Recently, I was involved in arranging Risk Assessment training for our Joiners. The courses were run by a consultant and myself. I pre-arranged with the consultant that relevant written safety procedures and Risk Assessment documents should be used during the coursework. We also decided to look at a cross section of relevant common hazards that operatives could face, and based the training on how to effectively control or eliminate those hazards by encourage debate.
After briefing operatives on legislative theory, we arranged for each of them (in groups of two) to carry out a practical Risk Assessment of the Joiners Workshop and surrounding operational areas. This had been pre-arranged and proved very effective.
I am not a ‘seasoned expert’ when it comes to training, however, I strongly suggest that training should be based on relevant real life working scenarios. I also suggest strongly that practical ‘hands on’ training delivered by an experienced person with good communiaction is likely to be much more effective than classroom only, theory based training delivered by a ‘teacher’reading from pre-written rext or powerpoint.
Bit of an epic but important to me!
I only came on this site as a break from PGc study!
Goodnight!
GC