Training

platinum said:
Hi Mate

I would like to see an onsite assessement brought in, where a Scaff is looked at on site where the work is beinhg carried out, then an exam like an open uni type thing.

Ive got 5 lads been in the game 20 years great workers but family men, have not got tickets as they dont want to go away for 5 days x2 and leave the wife & kids, + costs, the nearest training from Basingstoke is 85 miles away, so cant go to and from every day !!

Why cant the bloody CISRS bring in the weekend course again !!! at least they could do that over 2 weekends not 10 days.

Platinum
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I agree pal.
 
Yeah i think somthing should be done i was s
camed unto doing the nvq2 and then told i could not be funded again so now i hsve to pay for pt1&pt2 trainig outa my own pocket.ive been scaffolding 9years now.got my cscs card saftey passport(scats) card and nvq2 and cisrs still wont issue me with a card because i never done it under them.it stinks ! ! !
 
Old School Scaffolders

Are men of a certain age, with skills and knowledge obtained throughout their life. These skills and knowledge are not limited to the scaffolding game but also include the hard lessons learned at the University of Life and the experience that only comes when you have gone through the mill a few times

My own experience in scaffolding, started at 18 years for Mills scaffolding think I did about 3 month in the yard before going out with a gang. The gangs comprised a chargehand, spanner man, and labourer normally. All the gangs were on price work but your presence was not deducted from the price, you were in effect an extra man at no cost to the gang. You were rotated around several gangs over the next three month or so. If you were a good grafter and did as instructed by the chargehand the gangs were all after you to be sent with them.

That’s when the real training started if it was heavy on the labouring you were on the deck feeding gear to the scaffs or pulling on a rope and wheel all day or loading unloading wagons It was the norm that on dismantles once the job was down the scaffs were off. It was up to the labourer to clear up. This encouraged him to keep up with the clearing of gear and not toss it off. Other times the chargehand would have you up top and explain what he was doing, have you spreading gear and if you were really lucky you might get to wrap the bottoms of dog-legs (did not know what a ledger brace was until 1995 ha ha ) or a few transoms.

From there on in you built your reputation as a scaffolder and believed in the old saying “your as good as your last job.” And did not ask anybody to do something you could not do yourself

To me Old School is about the in depth training we received from the scaffs of the day, the ability to look at an access problem and solve it without the dubious help of Designers, risk assessment, method statements, PPE, and all the knobs that have never been on a scaffold telling us how to do The a job

When the chargehand was in charge of the scaffolding erected and was responsible for his gang and there actions

When you were employed directly by a scaffolding or main contractor,

When employment agencies were for white collar jobs.

When jobs were advertised you expected to have at least 6 month work not the 2/3 weeks work that is regularly advertised today. Or with a scaffold company years of work

When there were not thousands of scaffold companies cutting each others throats and driving prices down and the risk of injury up.

When rope work, cradles, and system scaffolds were all part of our job description

I could go on forever; there have been that many changes over the past 40 years, but you will have to buy my book for more, when I finally write it.

To try and sum up, Old School to me is how we were taught the job, how we passed this on to others, how we were competent to tackle the job at hand, how we stuck together and backed each other up, how we treated others when we climbed the ladder through chargehand, foreman, supervisor, contacts manager, and owners in some cases.

I believe that there are scaffolders still being trained with the values and ethics of the Old School and I wish them well in their careers. The job is just as hard and demanding both physically and mentally today, as it was the first day I started. If not more so with all the “experts” in scaffolding that have never swung a spanner offering their advice at premium rates.
__________________
Rigger

This is what we need to get back to.
 
Dandaps

Thanks for re-posting that missive of mine from another thread :cool:

When I first saw it I thought you was passing it off as your own :toung: and I was going to go off on a rant about copywright :D then I remembered that imitation was the highest form of flattery. Thanks Mate

Followed your link and did an inspection of your photographs on web-site.Think it is time you replaced and updated the single handrail job on home page :cry: and give that joiner a rollicking
onward and upward
 
Last edited:
Yes agree rigger not got round to the website yet just the firm who did the site for us designed it. As for the post mate I just saved it and am trying to keep these values going today.
 
Dandaps said:
Old School Scaffolders

Are men of a certain age, with skills and knowledge obtained throughout their life. These skills and knowledge are not limited to the scaffolding game but also include the hard lessons learned at the University of Life and the experience that only comes when you have gone through the mill a few times

My own experience in scaffolding, started at 18 years for Mills scaffolding think I did about 3 month in the yard before going out with a gang. The gangs comprised a chargehand, spanner man, and labourer normally. All the gangs were on price work but your presence was not deducted from the price, you were in effect an extra man at no cost to the gang. You were rotated around several gangs over the next three month or so. If you were a good grafter and did as instructed by the chargehand the gangs were all after you to be sent with them.

That’s when the real training started if it was heavy on the labouring you were on the deck feeding gear to the scaffs or pulling on a rope and wheel all day or loading unloading wagons It was the norm that on dismantles once the job was down the scaffs were off. It was up to the labourer to clear up. This encouraged him to keep up with the clearing of gear and not toss it off. Other times the chargehand would have you up top and explain what he was doing, have you spreading gear and if you were really lucky you might get to wrap the bottoms of dog-legs (did not know what a ledger brace was until 1995 ha ha ) or a few transoms.

From there on in you built your reputation as a scaffolder and believed in the old saying “your as good as your last job.” And did not ask anybody to do something you could not do yourself

To me Old School is about the in depth training we received from the scaffs of the day, the ability to look at an access problem and solve it without the dubious help of Designers, risk assessment, method statements, PPE, and all the knobs that have never been on a scaffold telling us how to do The a job

When the chargehand was in charge of the scaffolding erected and was responsible for his gang and there actions

When you were employed directly by a scaffolding or main contractor,

When employment agencies were for white collar jobs.

When jobs were advertised you expected to have at least 6 month work not the 2/3 weeks work that is regularly advertised today. Or with a scaffold company years of work

When there were not thousands of scaffold companies cutting each others throats and driving prices down and the risk of injury up.

When rope work, cradles, and system scaffolds were all part of our job description

I could go on forever; there have been that many changes over the past 40 years, but you will have to buy my book for more, when I finally write it.

To try and sum up, Old School to me is how we were taught the job, how we passed this on to others, how we were competent to tackle the job at hand, how we stuck together and backed each other up, how we treated others when we climbed the ladder through chargehand, foreman, supervisor, contacts manager, and owners in some cases.

I believe that there are scaffolders still being trained with the values and ethics of the Old School and I wish them well in their careers. The job is just as hard and demanding both physically and mentally today, as it was the first day I started. If not more so with all the “experts” in scaffolding that have never swung a spanner offering their advice at premium rates.
__________________
Rigger

This is what we need to get back to.
Click to expand...
All very true Dandaps, from the same generation of scaffs as yourself, share your values. Put me on your buyers list for the book when you get around to writing it.
 
Cheers guys don't want to take credit for someone elses work. The the original post was by rigger. I simply copyed and pasted. But when he origanally posted I loved it printed it off and stuck it up in the yard. So that when the new starters read it they may understand about how the trade should work and a few months down the line they may think twice before they think they are gods gift to scaffolding.
 
Last night for this thread your comments are going to birmingham with us..
 
ill buy one too,what bout having minimum ten years experiance before applying for a advance card course,some of these card holders are frightening,two year at the game and doing advance assesment wow far too early.
 
ask them steve why 90% of the scaffold industry arnte happy dont get thrown out lol.
 
Suppose it depends who the 10 years experience is with ?? good scaffolder then great.. crap scaff.. then not so good..
 
steve gregory said:
Last night for this thread your comments are going to birmingham with us..
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Hi Steve,
Looking forward to meeting all of you tomorrow but thought I would add my tuppence worth on the forum anyway.

I was working with a boy today erecting round a bay window. This boy has been with me for nearly 2 years, keen as mustard and works hard if a bit single speed. He has not long completed his part 2 training and waiting to go early next year for his assessment. I couldn't believe how he struggled to follow the procedure to erect this fairly basic structure, I wondered if it was my fault for allowing this to develop but sometimes when your on the spanner your focus is on getting the job up rather than on individuals performance. I will take my share of the blame but feel anyone that has spent 7 weeks with the CITB should as a minimum be able to handle a bay window. I don't blame him in the least as he does what he's told when he's told but something is certainly lacking and with the stories he comes back with about the amount of time wasted in the classroom listening to some instructors bull about how they were the greatest back in the day. My suggestion would be a far more intense course to include more real world structures, no more chimney saddles 3 foot from the deck, what ever they consider pass marks at their centre I consider very mediocre and it aint good enough. I will do my bit, the boy in question is in for a few weeks of intensive training from me, let's hope the training centre's can do the same.
 
if what your saying is prevaling from these trainning centres is true then heaven forbid aom,pesonally i never learned much at these centres as what you said bout the instructors ie being the greatest was very much my experiance of them also.i learned from sum good sum not so good guys on site in situe,still learning to this day lol over 25year on,all the best with the youngster if hes got the right attitude im sure youl shape the lad into a good un.
 
yeah good point aom not knocking the trainners just the time scale its not long enough
ive had lads with me keen as mustard and have there cisrs tickets there ok with supervision but on there own unable to progress untill they get there exsperience which
is with time long time.
 
I said that to the boy today Dico, I know he is lacking in experience and sometimes it's hard to try and get it for him, but if it still takes experience to turn them into scaffs why bother with the training at all?
 
ok your notes are going with me now , sorry but wont be able to view any more posts on this till probably thursday. all posts will be put to the committee later today. have a safe flight AOM see ya in a few hours...
 
massive0775

steve gregory said:
so im compiling a survey as to what you would most like to see changed within the training of scaffolders.. something for the NVQ board to look at.. this is not a pop at CISRS or anybody else , your thoughts please.. what youd like included and what needs changing..
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every other trade in the construcion indsutry has what they call an ace accsseor expect the scaffolders like you say cisrs is just a money makeing machine they should have trained ace accsseors for scaffs that would sort the skilled lads out from the un skilled lads :evil:
 
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