I used to run one, and now help more than 20 get business in. And they vary. Some short courses, some long NVQ ones. I know the industry very well.

Hope that clears things up.

Checkout tilersforums.co.uk too. I have hundreds of views saved online for me to work out the ones I don’t know, and for you lot to read before choosing.

“I can’t personally recommend one myself as i’ve not been to any of them”

If this is the case how can you make statments like you have in the above article.

I Am the owner of a multi trades centre and find some of your views way off the mark.

What should it matter if there are other trades being taught in the same centre or a centre “across the road” as you put it.

My background is not tiling but our tiling instructors have years of experience! as have all our tutors, and a very carfully vetted not just of there knowledge of their proffesion but also their ability to pass that knowledge on.

These tutors and courses are constantly monitered through our feedback forms that all our trainees fill out and are on file for anyone visiting the centre to view.

Our Plumbing tutors do not teach tiling or visa versa but I do accept that this does happen in some schools.

You also make reference as to why a well paid tiler would want to work for someone else as a tutor!

I can answer this one for you. you have no way of knowing how much any of these centres you are lambasting pay their tutors? or have you thought that maybe some of them are either retired or semi-retired tilers with years and years of experience.

As with anything there are cowboys and I do agree with you 100% regarding all the sales gimmicks and dragging out longer courses however we cannot all be tarred with the same brush.

End of rant!

I can’t personally recommend one myself as I’ve not been to any of them.

many thanks in advance

http://www.tilingcoursescompanies.co.uk/

For the record, I know it wasn’t yourself as running traceroutes on the IP’s and ‘info’ we get when a message is left shows me which AOL customer it was. (And AOL have been notified of the abusive customer too) yet I know you’re not an AOL user, or at least when replying to my articles.

The previous post has been edited… for those reading this now that wonder what Darren is talking about.

Again though, Darren, I am glad that it is obvious from your fair comments that you only want the same as I, good, fair, honest training at honest fair prices. Something which is being addressed by TTA and ConstructionSkills on a regular basis.

Could I ask you to reword your last post. It implies that I am the writer of both the fair posts and the unfair posts that appeared. I’m sure you were addressing my posts and the other posts in one response but it is not reading like that.

Not a problem.

I understand that there are training centres that are multi-skill jobbies and they are sh*t-hot! But those are usually the NVQ / ConstructionSkills supported centres and not an experienced ex-tiler employing plumbers…. from what I can tell feedback-wise.

Regarding feedback on tilersforums.co.uk… we manage our feedback and allow feedback for ALL training centres to be posted. Yet other forums seem to be VERY self-supportive but give no fair comparison by erasing posts (or not even erasing in all cases… mostly just changing the name of any centre in posts to their own…. hardly legitimate feedback).

Tilersforums.co.uk is funded by sponsors of ANY tiling related business and training centres love the chance to get the coverage so primarily they are training centres but we are not connected to them nor even erase BAD feedback about them. How’s that for a fair forum?

I am really glad that we have bot sides of the story here to chat about. Keep up the fair comments.

Thanks for responding to the questions posed.

Taking the first point about dedicated tiling schools I don’t accept what you are saying. There may be some ‘jack of all trade’ centres that aren’t any good. You cannot state it as a blanket policy. A multi skill centre can have dedicated tiling trainers and dedicated plumbing trainers and be comprehensive in both areas.

Regarding the feedback on tilersforums.co.uk I’m not saying that it isn’t valid. But the feedback on other forums is just as valid and again the members can be e-mailed regarding any further information required.

What could, in fact, be suss is apparent to me after having only a quick view of the site. Tilersforums.co.uk is funded by advertising from (wait for it) tiling training companies. I don’t see how that forum can claim to be independent given that fact.

And the feedback on tilersforums.co.uk that is kept is that of the members that still post to this day and some have been on a few courses so you can email or PM them to see the pro’s and con’s of each centre they left feedback about, whereas on the forums that own training centre it seems very very suspicious and bias and left by members who have posted only a few times OR by regular members leaving the same replies to course information requests. Both suss.

I’ve met some too, some are genuine, but many more are questionable.

Why does it matter if a company is running a tiling and plumbing course for example? Seems an obvious connection for something like bathroom refurbs. You’d go to a college that runs several different courses.

Why is feedback on a forum owned by a company not valid feedback? Who is to say that the feedback submitted to tilersforums is not the training companies posing as ex students? It’s just as likely.

(As an aside I have personally met some delegates of one training school that operate a forum and so can vouch for the comments posted)