Joining Instructions

The joining instructions page gives you information about everything that you need to bring, wear or do before your course starts, including where we are and where you can stay and park locally.

The majority of our courses are designed for those with no previous subject knowledge, so if this is you, please don’t worry. For those with some previous knowledge, we look forward to developing this further.

We’ve listed a number of points below that we need to bring to your attention before the start of your course. Should you have any questions about these, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.

Who?

Identification

All candidates over the age of 14 will need to show your instructor an ‘approved’ form of identification at the start of your course.

You must bring with you at least 1 form of photographic identification, or if this isn’t available, 2 forms of non-photographic identification can be produced. (See below).

Without your ID you won’t be allowed to undertake the end of course assessment or gain your certificate/qualification.

Acceptable forms of photographic I.D. (1 required) are:

• Signed UK Photo card driving licence
• Signed passport (any nationality)
• Proof of age card accredited by the Proof of Age Standards Scheme
• Valid EU Photo identity card
• Employee photo identification card
• SIA security licence
• Current and valid warrant card issued by HM forces or Police
• Current and valid Prison service card
• Firearms licence

Acceptable forms of non-photographic I.D. (2 required) are:

• Current driving licence – paper version
• Birth certificate
• Marriage/civil partnership certificate
• Mortgage statement (issued within past 12 months)
• Bank or building society statement (issued within last 3 months)
• Bank or building society account opening confirmation letter (issued within last 3 months)
• Credit card statement (issued within last 3 months)
• Pension or endowment financial statement (issued within last 12 months)
• P45 or P60 statement (issued within last 12 months)
• Council tax statement (issued within last 12 months)
• Valid work permit or visa issued by UK government
• Utility bill – excluding mobile phone bill (issued within last 3 months)
• Benefit statement e.g. child benefit, pension (issued within last 3 months)

Where?

We’re based in Knutsford in Cheshire, just 3 miles from Junction 19 of the M6.

Parking

Unfortunately there is no parking at our training centre (disabled parking only). Also note that the local traffic wardens & PCSO’s are always on patrol and they both like handing out parking tickets! So please park carefully. The main road outside our training venue has a maximum parking time of 1 hour, so please use alternative parking locations.

Knutsford Council have a handy webpage that details all of the car parks close to venue 1, 2 & 3, including how long you can park at them.

https://www.cheshireeast.gov.uk/car_parks_and_parking/car_parks_and_parking.aspx

Cheshire East Council now use PayByPhone. You can pay for your parking using the PayByPhone app on your smart phone, or use coins in the meter.

We strongly recommend that if you wish to use the app, that you register for it before the day of your course. It’ll save you 15 minutes of hanging on the phone while trying sort out your parking.

Car Sharing

We realise that car sharing isn’t always possible. However, where there is a group, or even just a few of you attending from the same business, car sharing will reduce our overall carbon footprint and reduce your overall course costs. It may also reduce the likelihood of you getting a parking fine as fewer cars in Knutsford means more available parking spaces.

Trains

Knutsford train station is 4 minutes walk away, at the corners of Toft Road & Adams Hill. There are a flight of steps down to the station from Toft Road, or you can access by vehicle from King Street (known locally as “Bottom Street”) & Adams Hill. The station is on the Manchester Piccadilly to Chester line.

Here’s the link to the Trainline.com website to help you arrange your travel:

https://www.thetrainline.com/

What?

Clothing

• Comfortable clothing (such as t-shirts, sweaters and trousers)
• Sweatshirt/fleece (our training centre can be surprisingly cold!)
• First Aid courses:
  • Clothes that you don’t mind getting a little dirty, as you’ll be lying on the floor at some point on the course.
• Outdoor courses:
  • Outdoor clothing for when we’re practising outdoors.
  • A waterproof coat and (ideally) waterproof trousers.
• Evacuation Chair/Sledge courses:
  • You must wear flat soled footwear, ideally sturdy shoes/boots.

• “Anything that can be seen up, down or through”
  • e.g. pencil skirts, short skirts, leggings that go see-through when stretched, low cut or baggy blouses, etc.
• Outdoor courses:
  • Open-toed or soft shoes such as flip-flops, ballet pumps, sandals, ‘Crocs’ or Ugg Boots.
• Evacuation Chair/Sledge courses:
  • Open-toed or soft shoes such as flip-flops, ballet pumps, sandals, ‘Crocs’ or Ugg Boots. High heels, etc.

Assessments

• Course Assessment:
  • Specific assessment methods for your course will be discussed at the start of the course.
  • Typically these include practical and multiple choice assessment. You will be required to undertake and pass these, in order for you to pass the course and qualify for you certificate.
  • Practical elements require a 100% correct to pass.
  • Written elements require 70% to pass.

Reasonable adjustments:

• If you need us to make reasonable adjustments for any physical impairments, allergies, learning needs, or having English as a second language, etc, please get in touch with us ASAP.
• We may need to discuss these with the Awarding Organisation (where appropriate) several weeks in advance of the course assessment date.

Food & drink

• Use of the kitchen facilities will be discussed before the start of the course.
• Hot drinks will be available at our training centre as normal. These are tea, coffee & semi-skimmed cow milk.
• Please bring your own mugs & your own drinks if you wish.
• Bring your own lunch & snacks. Please use outside areas to eat your lunch when possible.

Allergies & Medications

• If you have food allergies, etc, please let us know at the time of your booking. We will advise the other course candidates as necessary & make any changes that might be required.
• Please ensure that you bring your medication with you; the last thing that we want to do is dealing with a real case of anaphylaxis.

Equipment

• All training equipment, including books, etc. will be provided.
• Please bring a notepad and pen along with you.
• Outdoor courses – please also bring the following items with you;
  • Sunscreen
  • Insect repellent

When?

• Arrival time:
  • Please arrive around 20 minutes before the start of the course. This is to give you time to complete any paperwork before the start of your course.
• Lateness:
  • If you are going to be late, please contact us immediately by phone (01565 746555).
  • If you are more than 15 minutes late, and you have not already contacted us, you will not be allowed to join the course & will forfeit your course fee.
  • See our Terms & Conditions for further details.
• Course duration:
  • Please refer to your original order confirmation email as this will include the start and approximate finish times.
  • On occasion courses do run over, beyond their planned finish times. Please allow for this in your travel plans

Blended Learning Courses

Blended learning courses are a combined type of course where you will undertake an online pre-learning element of the course, then come to us for the face to face part of the course.

Online course

• Shortly after purchase of your place(s) on the course, you’ll receive your login credentials via email. These are manually generated, so may take a few hours to come through, although we try to be as fast with these as possible.
• Please undertake the online element of the course a minimum of 2 days before the face to face course. This is because some people learn at different rates, so it may take you longer than advertised to complete the course. The advertised timescales for the online element are those typically recorded by candidates.
• Don’t worry too much about the technology side of things; all you need is a laptop, tablet, or even a smartphone.

Classroom course

• Please look through the Face to Face course section below which gives you loads of information relating to the classroom based part of the course.

Webinar Courses

Since the UK started “social distancing”, we’ve been looking at novel ways that we can use to run our courses & have chosen the Zoom webinar system as our preferred means of doing this.

How to get ready for your webinar or blended webinar course

Technology & requirements:

• Don’t worry too much about the technology side of things; all you need is a laptop or tablet with a webcam. If you have the headphones that came with your smartphone (headphones and a microphone), feel free to use those as well.
• We’ll be using Zoom for the webinars. If you already have the Zoom desktop client or app installed that’s great. If you don’t, don’t worry as the course webinar can be run without it being installed.
• You just need to click on the joining link that you received when you booked your place on the course.
• At least 30 minutes before the webinar, please spend some time testing your screen, webcam & microphone setup. To do this;
  • Visit http://zoom.us/test.
  • Click the blue “Join” button to launch Zoom.
  • When prompted by your browser, click Open Zoom Meetings. If you don’t have Zoom installed on your computer, follow the prompts to download and install Zoom.
    • If you already have the Zoom desktop client/app installed, this will open up the desktop client/app & immediately state that the meeting ID is not valid. Don’t worry about this. Simply click on “OK” to clear the message. Click on the gear-shaped settings icon to then access your video and audio settings.
  • The test meeting will display a pop-up window to test your speakers. If you don’t hear the ringtone, use the drop-down menu or click “No” to switch speakers until you hear the ringtone. Click “Yes” to continue to the microphone test.
  • If you don’t hear an audio reply, use the drop-down menu or click “No” to switch microphones until you hear the replay. Click “Yes” when you hear the replay.
  • Click “Join with Computer Audio” to join the test meeting with the selected microphone and speakers.
  • You will then join the test meeting as an attendee.
  • Please spend a few minutes learning what the various functions are on your screen, especially the audio & video settings in the bottom left hand corner.

Setting up your room for the webinar

To ensure that you get the very best from your course, there are a few things that you need to arrange before your course.

• You need to be able to work in a well-lit, quiet room, with minimal background noise and distractions.
• Please don’t have any pets, children, babies, etc in the room with you. The only exception to this is when you are undertaking a first aid course where you need to be able to demonstrate to the instructor & assessor how to put someone into the recovery position. For this you must have a second person in the room with you (e.g. for you to put into the recovery position) as without them, we cannot confirm your competence in these techniques. You will also need to be able to move the camera angle so that we can see you demonstrate these skills. Please consider how you could do this before your course.
• For courses that have a practical element (first aid, manual handling, etc), please ensure that you have plenty of floor space around you so that you can demonstrate the practical skills taught & assessed during the course.
• If you’re using a computer with a separate webcam, please ensure that it’s connected and ready to use before the start time of your course. Zoom has an equipment test function
• Use a good microphone. A noise-cancelling headset is recommended.

Equipment

• Please ensure that you have got everything ready before the start time for your course. Being a webinar, we can’t wait for you. If you’re late, you will be locked out of the webinar. If this happens, please email us immediately so that we can make arrangements for a new time/date for your course.
• For all courses that require specific training equipment, we will ensure that this is couriered to you at least 72 hours before your course. This is so that you can put the items into quarantine for 72 hours. After this time, if there was any of the coronavirus on the equipment, it will have become “unviable” (i.e. dead). Naturally to allow for this quarantine period, all courses that require training materials will be closed to new participants 7 days before the scheduled start date of the course.
• The training manual & any bandages are yours to keep. Everything else will be collected from you by courier after your course has completed. There will be a prepaid postage bag included for this purpose.
• A refundable deposit payment for the training equipment is taken at the time of booking your course. When we have received your training equipment back & confirmed that the equipment has been returned in a serviceable condition, we refund your deposit payment. Naturally we will also be placing all returned items in quarantine for 72 hours, so the refund of your deposit payment may take a little while to come through.

On the day of your course

• You need to sign into the webinar. We won’t contact you.
• If you have any problems, please get in touch with us directly by emailing us at [email protected]
• Don’t forget, enjoy the course. We’re all getting used to this new way of working.

Anything else?

Please don’t hesitate to contact us if there’s anything that we’ve missed from our joining instructions or that you’re not sure about before your course.