A Qualified Workforce: by Mark Priestman

Mark Priestman is a Partner at Priestman Associates LLP, a leading fa√Åade preservation project consultancy, from stonemasonry and heritage skills through to site supervision and conservation management. The partnership is trusted by the leading brands of the sector as an NVQ provider for experienced, upskiller and apprentice workers. 07876 687212. [email protected].

The training industry is reporting an uptake in enrolments on distance or remote learning programmes. Not a surprise, considering social distancing rules after the lengthy lockdown. But one of the drawbacks many experience to learning remotely is a sudden absence of personal discipline and motivation.

At Priestman Associates there is quite a lot of scope for offering remote learning. Much of the NVQ programme can be achieved at distance, although it requires planning and commitment.

So we have styled the FORMAT approach to remote learning.

FORMAT stands for: Focused, Ordered, Refreshed, Mentored, Anchored, Timed.

Let’s take a look at this approach in more detail.

Focused. Declutter your learning environment to remove distractions. Can you turn off the phone for a couple of hours to get ahead with your programme? Could you book space in a meeting room? If you can, you will certainly increase your productivity.

The perk of getting ahead early acts as a motivator to keep up the pace for the rest of the session. If your course is sponsored by your employers they consider it to be an investment. And I have yet to meet an employer who would scorn their employee for using time management skills to block out agreed periods of the working week (like you would for a meeting) to focus on progressing through a training programme.

Ordered. Have you ever seen the trick at school where a teacher wants to fill a jar with marbles and a tennis ball? If you put the marbles in first there is not enough room for the tennis ball. But put the tennis ball in first and all the marbles fit around it.

What do we learn from that? Prioritise your course on the days you have selected and start early to get ahead. By contrast, if you make your course an afterthought it will never properly fit in with your schedule.

Refreshed. We have a habit of using painful descriptors such as ‘study’ and ‘revision’ when describing learning and it sounds like a chore. So avoid the words.

Dress comfortably but not too comfortably. Dress with purpose and your activities for the day will be more purposeful. Use notes and bullet-journals to document what you need to commit to memory and the process will be friendlier too. You might consider sketching out key points or using spider diagrams to commit subjects to memory.

Set an alarm to stop your training for lunch and breaks. Move away from the learning area during these refreshment breaks and get fresh air if you can. If you feel like stopping early, don’t. Make it a goal to press on until the alarm sounds. Do not linger at breaks, either, or you will disconnect and be distracted.

Mentored. Remote learning ought not to mean unmentored learning. Normally a training programme will provide a tutor to check in with (and hopefully they will be checking in on you). If you are concerned you are heading in the wrong direction, send them a sample of what you are doing and ask for feedback. Ask them if you are over-thinking and over-delivering on the assignments. Sure, it’s good to be zealous about our work but if you over do it you could burnout and fail to complete the course.

Anchored. On a ship an anchor holds a vessel in place against currents and winds that want to move it. Several things anchor us, including our learning environment. It needs to be calm and distraction free. It needs to be comfortable but not too comfortable, a proper work environment with a desk, wi-fi and water.

Another crucial anchor is your objective of doing this course. Most of us are goal oriented, especially when the goal affects the quality of your life – your ability to provide for your children, your ease of access to work, your professional reputation, and so on. List those objectives prominently at the front of your course folder and refer to it if you feel you are heading towards demotivation.

Timed. Everything needs to be kept in its place. If lockdown taught us anything let us hope it imprints upon us the value of a routine. When people don’t eat breakfast it is rarely because they have too much to do. More likely they failed to stick to a routine that gave them time for it.

When aiming for successful completion of a remote learning programme it’s important to allocate space in your schedule devoted to the course. And to stick to it without over doing it. Just because you normally work an eight-hour day does not mean an eight-hour training day will be sustainable. Little and often is a better approach.

Can you do an NVQ remotely? Most of it, yes. If you are on the on-site assessed route, your assessor can work with you to plan and review your progress by telephone or video conferencing (such as Zoom). Evidence of your competency can be gathered from work documentation, work diaries, questions & answers, video and photo evidence and recorded discussions.

That just leaves the one-to-one observation requirement that most assessors will leave to the end of the process as (hopefully) dangers decrease in connection with the Covid-19 pandemic.