Tiling News - Tilers News » training

Tiling Courses List Updated

Tiling News Dan — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:28:26 +0000

The short but sweet Tiling Courses list has been updated. It hadn’t been touched since late in 2010 and was quite out of date. The few training centre’s listed should cater for pretty much any area of the country. Note that it is always recommended to go and physically visit at least 3 training centre’s and see the environments you could be learning the skills that you use for the rest of your life. So the most local training centre to you may not always be the wisest of choices. Often travelling a bit of a distance (and arguably travelling a long distance and arranging a B&B) can pay dividends when you come to get stuck on that job that you didn’t cover, because you went to your most local training centre and not a highly recommended one that might have been just a hours further drive.

Please feel free to reply to this blog post with details of the training centre you have attended that you would recommend yourself to others, and if you’re lucky enough, it might just get added to the main list.

The main list: www.uktilingnews.co.uk/tiling-courses/

Specialist Training Courses has gone into Receivership

Tiling News Dan — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:19:47 +0000

Specialist Training Courses (STC) of Harlow, formerly PTS, has officially gone into receivership. No more news as of yet, but we’ll keep you posted.

Alpine Tiling – Professional Tiling Courses

Tiling News Dan — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 18:43:31 +0000

We’re pleased to announce that Alpine Tiling (tiling courses) are now sponsors of the UK’s biggest network of wall and floor tilers, TilersForums.co.uk.

It isn’t very often that a position for professional tiling training centre’s becomes available on TilersForums.co.uk though for 2010 one has become available and Alpine Tiling have been waiting a long time for the spot.

Gary from Alpine is pleased about the position and assure us that their training centre is second to non and will delivery the very best to all that wish to learn tiling training.

Alpine Tiling has had a feedback section on TilersForums.co.uk for some time now and I’m sure the recent outcome will attract many more happy contributors to the feedback topic. To view the feedback click here: Alpine Training Group – Tiling Courses.

If you would like to contact Alpine Training then please do so using the following details:-

Alpine Tiling Group – Training
Unit G10,
Atlas Industrial Park,
Harbour Road,
Rye
TN31 7TE

Tel: 01797 22 99 00
Email: gary@alpinetiling.co.uk

Please mention UK Tiling News or TilersForums when calling.

Anti-stick Training Adhesive for Tiling Training Centre’s

Tiling News Dan — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:29:35 +0000

Training Centre’s have had a non-stick adhesive for some time but there are still a few training centre’s ‘fixing’ tiles to walls and floors using a standard adhesive.

If you’re looking for training adhesives for your training centre then please checkout a couple of the options you have including:-

– 0870 333 0070 – Weber http://www.netweber.co.uk/
– PCI http://www.pci.uk.com/en/Pages/Contact.aspx

TilersForums.co.uk Competition Winners Announced

Tiling News Dan — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:19:49 +0000

Diamond Training Centre provided a competition for the forum offering training courses to the three winners picked at random from a hat. The entries each had to find out the Year tilersforums.co.uk was created, which was 2006, and some even worked out the Month, which was April.

The three winners have been announced on the forum today in the following thread: Win a Two Week Tiling Course – Competition Winners Announced Here!

TilersForums.co.uk would like to thank Diamond Training Centre for making this opportunity possible.

Free Underfloor Heating Installation Training for Tilers

Tiling News Dan — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 07:23:21 +0000

UHeat Underfloor Heating will be providing a free underfloor heating installation training course for wall and floor tilers at Yorkshire Tiling Academy.

Information Here: UFH Training

Training Centre’s to Get a Tiling NVQ From

Tiling News Dan — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 02:59:26 +0000

There are only a select few training centre’s in the UK that can offer a Wall and Floor Tiling NVQ Level 2, the current Tiling Qualification recognised in the UK.

Some of the Select Few Training Centre’s
– Able Skills
– Chase Tiling Academy

Tiling Courses Companies offers a full list of Tiling Courses and NVQ Training Centres.

Construction Training Courses

Tiling News Dan — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:01:32 +0000

The UK’s largest independent database of tiling training providers and courses is held at www.tilingcoursescompanies.co.uk.

Other Courses

Wetroom Installation Training Course

Tiling News Dan — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:18:48 +0000

Checkout the Wetroom Installation Training Course that Wetdecs is running around the early part of next year. All professional wall and floor tilers, bathroom fitters etc are welcome.

Wetdecs Says: “Looks like we will run this beginning of Feb 2009 give you guys time to get christmas out the way.
Travelling time is a pain so its likely to be a Friday after noon and sat morning.
Not set in stone :
Fri we will be covering a wood wetdec in one session plus uncoupling, expansion and tiling wood floors.
Sat putting a concrete system in plus tanking and adhesives,grout chat.
Both these days will be for tilers interested, I am not there to ponce around selling you stuff you will learn how its done and there will be no sticker for your van.
Coffee tea as you go lunch b4 you leave etc…..

Likely cost will be £150.”

What Tilers Forums Does For The Tile Industry

Tiling News Dan — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:34:58 +0000

What TilersForums.co.uk does for DIY and Professional Wall and Floor Tilers in the UK

TilersForums.co.uk was setup in April 2006 and got off to a slow start considering how quickly it is growing right now. It took some time to get 50 members registered but from there-on there were no problems in that department. Now the free forum that’s built up from members such as the Wall and Floor Tilers which are a mix of mainly Professional with a few homeowners / DIY ‘weekend warriors’ has more than 8,000 members with 6,900 of them logging in within the last 12 months and 6,500 of those logging in within the last 6 months.

The Tile Industry in the UK has many groups or associations serving the industry, usually with some form of committee setup, often charging to become a member, almost always lacking members! And often they never really provide much to the Wall and Floor Tiler / Homeowner with a big tiling project coming up.

TilersForums.co.uk realised that with the backing of large numbers of people from within the tile industry projects that help the industry in some way are much easier to achieve. TilersForums.co.uk uses this theory to keep serving the industry with a really popular place to find information, products, reviews and feedback, general discussion, training advice, recommended suppliers and brands and pretty much anything else to do with tile, in the UK.

Some of the important free services we provide to the industry include (but are not limited to!!!):-

General Tiling Advice

TilersForums.co.uk hosts a section where any question can be asked regarding any area of the actual physical act of wall and / or floor tiling and can guarantee professional advice from professional wall and floor tilers and approved suppliers / distributors / manufacturers often within minutes. A topic that is interesting and has been online for just 24 hours can have 100 opinions given, often really digging into the nitty gritty of the job / project underway, and often with images and source of information provided too.

REAL Tiling Training Advice

TilersForums.co.uk support the Wall and Floor Tiling NVQ Level 2 should a person want to get into wall and floor tiling professionally, that being charging general public and tile contractors and the likes for their time installing wall and floor tile of any type. They also understand that the nation as a whole can provide many types of tiling training courses for many types of scenarios and for that reason they have created a system / process to find the right tiling course. Firstly there’s a feedback section on the forum, this is independently managed by a team of moderators to ensure to the best of their ability that all feedback left, both negative and positive, is genuine and useful. The feedback section lists feedback about all tiling training centre’s in the UK and anybody who has been on any course can leave feedback for those looking for any course to read later.

You will also find a general course discussion category where a person looking for a tiling courses can find and join-in general course and NVQ chat before committing themselves to any one course.

TilersForums.co.uk also has approved training centre’s as sponsors of the forum, and chosen by course quality and location there are several approved training centre’s spreading across the UK. The training centre’s do a mix of all course types including weekend courses, evening courses, short courses, longer courses and few of them carry out Tiling NVQ’s too.

Helping Get Work In For Tilers

TilersForums.co.uk has a number of ways they source jobs and work for their members. This includes the most popular web site of its type www.FindTrustedTradesmen.co.uk which is free to use and register on. Not only is it free, and DOES get business in (unlike many other often even paid versions, even some of the ones training centre’s run don’t get business in for their listed tilers), but when you register a listing you get exclusive access to area’s and categories on TilersForums.co.uk which list discounts provided and processes to get the discount from many of its Approved Sponsors & Suppliers.

FindTrustedTradesmen.co.uk is advertised on and offline and people looking for all types of tradesmen hit the site every day and search through the local traders and use the web site as a first point of contact for traders that are recommended by many. On the web site you can view past work, read reviews (good or bad) and generally get to know the company a little before calling them to arrange the next step.

As well as that, TilersForums recently started a category on the forum where a customer can list physically list details of a job and allow the professional wall and floor tilers registered to the forum that are interested in the work to contact the them, the customer, for more information about the job, or to arrange the next step in their quoting / viewing process. This is a unique way to get business in for wall and floor tilers and it helps the customer and the tiler in a few ways. 1) The customer can often look through the profile of the tiler on the forum and find out if he/she thinks it’s worth getting them around to look at the job. 2) The customer knows that if the job doesn’t go well, the customer has a place to visit to get help and advice with their situation, and often no situation arises in the first place as a tiler wouldn’t try to ‘cop-out’ on a job found via the forum, knowing we know so many people within the industry they risk loosing some reputation somewhere down the line if fault of them and their work was actually found. 3) Did we mention it was free?!

Approved Suppliers, Courses and Brands etc

If there is a quality product or supplier out there, you can be sure you’ll find them on TilersForums.co.uk as an approved and trusted brand. Often sponsors will provide technical help to the forum members, and the forum provide links and information about their ranges within the forum throughout. Sponsors include some of the biggest names in the tile industry such as Mapei, CornerTape, Rubi, TradeTiler.com, UHeat, WetDecs, Schluter-Systems Ltd, 365Drills, Expotile / KBB, TileUK Magazine and Tile & Stone Journal, CTD Tiles & TileBase, and many more. We have more than 140 accounts on the forum that are members of staff from our sponsors that help provide discounts, advice, support and technical information regarding both their products and often speaking generically too. All of this advice is provided for FREE!

Elite Members

Along with the trusted advice from the suppliers and the likes, TilersForums.co.uk has around 120 members that are marked on the forum as ‘Elite Members’. These members are known and trusted for providing accurate advice to other members, and they’re the ones often helping offline too from time-to-time in many ways.

The Tile Network

TilersForums.co.uk started a Tile Business Network, a little like a Facebook for companies within the Tile Industry if you will, and that can be found at TilersTilingTiles.co.uk – remember the name by knowing we chat about Tilers, Tiling and Tiles, or perhaps imagine a picture of Tilers Tiling Tiles to a floor? The Tile Network has a few hundred members already and is growing quickly. This web site doesn’t take sponsors and is free for all companies to register on, advertise their goods and services, and provide and chat advice about all things tile. Though it’s setup in a social network-type affair including groups, forums, applications, and all things you’d expect to see on Facebook.

All Community Orientated!

The really unique thing that’s made TilersForums.co.uk such a known name on and offline in the Tile Industry is that the whole thing is run by people from within the Tile Industry. The members of the forum help in many ways by suggesting topics, products, processes and systems. Our Elite Members then get involved in working with new ideas and problem solving and often including our sponsors we’ll come up with something which can be tested and then launched. Only the sponsors pay the forum to be involved, and they’re happy paying knowing that the tile industry is getting good free advice. Everybody else gets access to all the recourses and information for free. And everybody gets involved in running the place in some way.

TilersForums.co.uk Doesn’t Sell You A Sausage!

TilersForums.co.uk doesn’t sell you a single thing. They leave that to the people that excel in their field, by getting them on-board as sponsors, or by working with them on something that benefits the members in some way. There are Google Advertisements that companies can sign-up to, and ‘click cash’ from this helps manage the running costs involved but all members have the ability to turn off the showing of these, should they not want to see them.

TilersForums.co.uk Approved & Insured Tiler

TilersForums.co.uk has a scheme setup whereby any professional tiler with a membership account on the forum can take out liability insurance (that’s discounted!) through the forum and get a set of ‘TilersForums.co.uk’ Approved and Insured Tiler’ stickers for their van(s). This gives the tiler benefits knowing their customers are aware of them being involved in the forum, and gives the customer a place to consider joining should they experience problems, and it also gives the tiler benefits by knowing they do have somewhere they can go to get any advice, hopefully leaving no room for error in their work and limiting failures in the future.

More Help Provided

TilersForums.co.uk also hosts discussion on all types of other things to do with wall and floor tiling, even down to accountancy and printing advice for businesses. In fact, anything you’ll hear being discussed on a building site, you’ll find discussed on a much larger scale on the forum. So you can imagine the amount of recommendations for cheaper supplies, service providers and the likes. TilersForums.co.uk have never worked the figures out fully, but say a wall and floor tiler going his own route around the industry will often pay lots more to get by than those on TilersForums.co.uk due to the amount of discounts setup from known trusted suppliers (often ones used anyway) and chat between professional tilers about other deals going on within the industry.

Who TilersForums.co.uk Need More Of

TilersForums.co.uk could quite easily provide all the above to 10 times the people we currently do. They’re always looking for more homeowners carrying out tiling projects, and established or new professional wall and floor tilers, and even people looking to get into the industry or those already in who want to get trained. Spread the word of the free community that could be seen to be providing more than any paid group or association by quite a lot of those important people in the tile industry, the ones buying the goods, the tilers and homeowners.

New Projects!

TilersForums.co.uk has a whole range of new projects being discussed, tested and launched. They can’t give details of these un till they’ve tested them out fully but they’ll all be just successful as the rest of the projects, and you can bet they’ll be free too.

They’re looking for all sorts of help from companies and associations within the tile industry and are constantly trying to get more backing from TTA (never with any joy!) and other associations from within the industry. If anybody can help, or thinks they have an idea, then please share it with the community and lets stop talking about it and start doing it.

SOME Of Our Websites

Tile Forums

Officially The UK’s Busiest Tile Website, TilersForums.co.uk became the biggest and most active tile forum in the UK in the shortest amount of time and overtook several on its way there. TilersForums.co.uk is sponsored by Rubi, Schluter Systems Ltd, CTD Tiles & TileBase, Mapei UK, CornerTape, WetDecs, Sealux, The Tile & Stone Show, and the Tile & Stone Journal.

Tiling Courses

TilingCoursesCompanies.co.uk is the UK’s largest list of tiling training centre’s and tiling courses.

Tiling Courses Reviews

TilingCoursesReviews.co.uk is one of our newer websites that is designed to allow people to vote on tiling courses. We’d always recommend using the established forum feedback first of all though if you’re looking for a tiling course.

Tiling Tools

ProTilingTools.co.uk is the only UK directory of tiling tool suppliers. Listing all decent tiling tool suppliers.
ProTilingTools.co.uk is sponsored by Rubi, Schluter Systems Ltd, CornerTape, 365Drills, WetDecs, Sealux and CTD Tiles.

Find a Tiler

FindTrustedTradesmen .co.uk is one of those websites you can visit to find trusted tradesmen, though ours is primarily designed to house our vetted professional wall and floor tilers. You can also checkout reviews of the tilers work using the customers review system on Find Trusted Tradesmen .co.uk

Tile Industry News

UKTilingNews.co.uk is the UK’s busiest tile news website. UKTilingNews.co.uk provides informations about the goings-on in the tile industry. This is the website that put the I in Independent – did I mention it’s free to use too? UKTilingNews.co.uk is also sponsored by Rubi, Schluter Systems Ltd, CTD Tiles & TileBase, Mapei UK, CornerTape, WetDecs, Sealux, The Tile & Stone Show, and the Tile & Stone Journal.

Tile Network

TilersTilingTiles.co.uk is the UK’s biggest tile social network. This was created to take on no sponsorship to prove we’re not all about the sponsorship deals. TilersTilingTiles.co.uk is the least moderated website we run and you can find companies on here that you wouldn’t normaly find chatting in the forums. TilersTilingTiles.co.uk is not sponsored – and is free! Think of it as a kind-of FaceBook for those in the tile industry.

Plumbing Forum

UKPlumbersForums.co.uk is the newest of our trade forums. UKPlumbersForums.co.uk is looking for sponsors though it does have a few. It’s a very busy plumbing forum with plenty of trusted members and even certified plumbing teachers offering advice and support. This forum is growing very quickly and has become a reputable and friendly plumbers forum.

Electrical Forum

ElectriciansForums.co.uk is one of the newest trade forums but has become to be a reputable and friendly place. All of our forums have grown independently and obviously attract all the right people quickly. ElectriciansForums.co.uk is no different. With sponsors from within the electrical training industry the electricians forums have become a trusted place for test paper questions and answers amongst other things.

Electrical Reference

ElectricalReference.co.uk is the first point of call when you’re picking at electrics (please ensure you’re compitent to do so!) or just have a big install on soon. ElectricalReference.co.uk can help with the recent update to the papers, though it’s a growing reference website and is looking for regular contributors.

Electrical Courses

UKElectricalCourses.co.uk is a new UK electrician course finder website. It’ll eventually list and find electrical courses near you! At the moment, it’s a kind-of A-Z, though work in progress.

Essex Tiling Training buys Diamond Training Centre

Tiling News Dan — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 23:02:03 +0000

Essex Tiling Training purchased Diamond Training Centre last week. Danny of Essex Tiling Training has mentioned that he will be putting together some sort of press release which we hope to see in the Mags and online in various places as soon as possible.

Diamond Training Centre is the older training centre out of the two and has served more students for at least that reason. It sounds like so far Danny will be keeping the Diamond Training Centre location though no talk has been said about the facilities at Essex Tiling Training.

We’ll get back to you as soon as we can

Plastering Courses

Tiling News Dan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:34:08 +0000

Diamond Training – Tiling Courses- http://www.dtg-plastering-courses.co.uk/

Welcome to the website of Diamond Plastering part of the acclaimed Diamond Training group. If you are looking for intensive plastering courses then you have come to the right place.
The professional courses in plastering provided by diamond has been carefully compiled to give you a very good comprehension of all of the main areas you will need to either Kickstart a plastering career or to add to your skills base. You will be guided through various stages of practical and informational aspects of plastering everyday throughout the courses: we will also give you thorough explanations, and practical demonstrations to aid you with the different tools and materials you will be using during your time on your course.

At Diamond Plastering we only employ the most highly skilled and experienced professional tutors who make it their goal to ensure that all applicants will achieve and maintain a very thorough understanding of each specific plastering course and everything that it actually involves.

Tile Adhesive

Tiling News Dan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:33:24 +0000

Mapei UK – http://www.mapei.co.uk/

A look at Mapei from its humble beginnings as a small company on the outskirts of Milan to its current position as a world-leading multinational specialising in adhesives and chemical products for the building industry.

65 years ago, Mapei was just a small company on the outskirts of Milan, dealing mainly in paints, plasters, and interior and exterior covering materials for large buildings, hospitals, and airports.

The big change came when the company began concentrating its efforts on a specific market niche: floor installation products.

This proved a very successful step and Mapei is now a multinational which has neither gone into the red nor laid off workers in all of its years in the business.

Its history is also inextricably linked with that of two generations of the Italian Squinzi family, in particular Rodolfo, who founded the company, and his son Giorgio who has continued his good work.

Tiling Courses in Scotland

Tiling News Dan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:32:00 +0000

Tiler Training School - http://www.tilertrainingschool.co.uk/

Tilers are in great demand due to the shortage of skilled workers trained to a high standard and the ever increasing demand for ceramic and natural stone in homes and commercial premises. With the potential to earn £30,000+ per

Tilers Forums updates the Tile Forums

Tiling News Dan — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:33:13 +0000

Tilers Forums is the UK’s Biggest Tile Forums. First online in April 2006 Tilers Forums tile and tiling frorum (tile forums for US/CA) now hosts many websites (all free for personal use) including but not limited to the Tiling Courses directory of ALL GOOD UK and Irish Tiling Training Centre’s, the Tiling Tools info-site listing all the professional and DIY tiling tool suppliers, and the Find a Tiler directory for customer to use and GOOD professional tiler’s to register on… for free. Please also checkout our new Tile Network website, Tilers, Tiling and Tiles. Copyright 2008 Tilers Forums Tiling and Tile Forums.

Tiler Training

Tiling News Dan — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:26:09 +0000

Tilers Forums .co.uk has provided a new recommended tiling courses page.

http://www.tilersforum.co.uk/tiling-courses.html for more information.

Natural Stone Tiling Course

Tiling News Dan — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:15:13 +0000

Looking for a Natural Stone Tiling Course?

www.TilingCoursesCompanies.co.uk will point you in the right direction.

City & Guilds Tiling Course

Tiling News Dan — Thu, 08 May 2008 03:13:09 +0000

Looking for a City & Guilds Tiling Course? Look here: www.tilingcoursescompanies.co.uk

Searching for a Tiling Course?

Tiling News Dan — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:45:22 +0000

If you’re looking for a tiling course then there’s a few factors you need to consider before booking up with any Tom, Dick or Harry. This post is designed to outline a few of those factors to give you a better start.

The fact that BAL have now stated they are offering their training brand as a franchise clearly tells us that these tiling courses and tiling training centres are money making machines.

I hope by the end of this article you are thinking seriously about your choice of training establishment!

Make sure you read all the feedback you can find online!

Make sure the training centre you choose has a good reputation. You can find course feedback online on website’s such as TilersForums.co.UK. TilersForums.co.uk is an independent Forum and is not connected to any training centre but other forums and online communities are lead by the actual training centres so you can’t really compare the feedback of a couple of training centres for example. And of the feedback you do see, how much of it is genuine and not the Staff of the training centre themselves posing as former students?

Support those that support the industry Association!

The only way the whole industry will ever move forward as one is to support the only existing Association in the industry, which is The Tile Association.

The Tile Association supports training centres that are good and the ones they don’t support usually just don’t use their name at all but some training centres get a little hot headed and seem to think that if they can’t be part of the existing association then they’ll make their own association.

This is sometimes considered to be giving out the wrong message. There’s only the TTA and there always will be. The TTA are currently in the process of ensuring all good training centres are offering NVQ’s and the bad ones don’t get business through them.

Make sure you get trained by somebody who is Qualified!

As a tiler you can earn a fair wage tiling. So why would a good tiler become an instructor for a training centre working for somebody?

Make sure you’re not being sold the experience of the training centre owner but would be shown the ropes in the training centre by an ex car salesman or a carpenter for example.

Make sure the trainer has tiled before and feel free to ask to see their C.V. and proof of their NVQ certificate and any other credentials they claim to have. And make sure the name on those certificates will be the person who will be teaching you.

There are too many people getting charged for tiling training and getting shown the ropes by somebody who is just as inexperienced! This has to stop!

Don’t get fooled by the “we help you setup a business” aspect!

Many training centres get picked due to the fact that they can help a new tiler setup in business. Then on the course they’ll spend your valuable tiling time sitting down and chatting about the right banks and marketing tactics etc.

Now what they don’t tell you is that this information is provided free of charge by hundreds of sources such as Banks, Accountants, Representatives of related companies and most of all, the Government funded organisation Business Link.

So if you’re going on a tiling course, just consider them for their tiling training and NOT their ability to help you setup in business.

It’s good to hear they tell you a few tips but to sit and tell 20 tilers how to setup in business is a joke when they know the market in the tilers local areas will be soooo different to each others and the tiler from the same area are going to be hitting the same tile shops, banks and business card printers.

Don’t choose them just because they have certain Brand Names and representatives of those companies in to “visit” you for a free chat!

It’s easy as a training centre to call a company and tell them that there are 15 – 20 new businesses at their unit each week and ask for a Representative to call round on a regular basis to give talks! But these reps would come your own home to chat too!

So what is happening here? These “free-talks” are just taking up your tiling time and enabling the training centre to act like a conference meeting point for reps to tout for your business which is sick to know the training centre is charging you for this service that’s provided free by the company the rep is part of anyway!

Don’t book with a 4 week course knowing a good few days worth of that course are spent by listening to reps selling you their services and products!

And if the training centre says you can sit out of them then, make sure you have THE QUALIFIED trainer around to help you out and use this time wisely while some of the class are off getting sold services by the reps you get a one to one session.

Don’t get sold by the “We get you exclusive trade accounts with credit limits”!

Any tiler is entitled to a trade account with tile retailers such as Topps Tiles and trade outlets like CTD (ceramic tile distribution). To say this service is an exclusive one is just fooling around with you to get your trust and your hard earned cash. There’s no benefit in signing up with these trade accounts at the training centre so why bother? Sign up afterwards. But don’t spend too much time at the training centre talking about it and certainly don’t choose a training centre just because of the accounts.

Due to the large amount of new tilers being pushed in the industry one Topps member of staff on TilersForums.co.uk actually now asks to see a portfolio full of examples of work in real customers jobs and even a few references from customer with their telephone numbers on to checkout the tilers work before trusting him to get business from the store. So you don’t want to be included in ‘that weeks set of new tiler trade accounts’ all the time with these companies offering you trade discounts.

Be sure you’re not too crowded!

It’s OK to have 20 tilers on a course providing there’s 3 or 4 trainers. One to one training would be just too much so it’s OK to share a teacher, just not with 19 other tilers. One teacher watching 10 guys can be hard and you’ll find the teacher just couldn’t point out as much about your work as he could if there were less to watch.

Make sure you are being covered by THE QUALIFIED tiling teacher 100% of the time you are in the practical training environment. And make sure when you’re in the theory environment you’re being lectured by QUALIFIED TEACHERS and not a company rep!

Recap:-

Check feedback online and only trust feedback that’s governed by an independent body!
Support those that don’t slag off the industry Association!
Make sure you are being trained by a QUALIFIED TILER at least, preferably an NVQ Assessor or similar.
Don’t let them spend too much time on getting your business setup, there are plenty of FREE sources for this!
Don’t let them sit you in front of Reps of companies to do talks on their products – That’s FREE elsewhere too – obviously!
Don’t book just because you get credit accounts with certain industry trade outlets, those are also FREE!

And a couple of Good Business ethics.

Don’t give business to a company that compare themselves to their competition directly, there’s always a catch and they would never point out their competitions’ benefits over their own.
Don’t give business to a company that knocks their competition in any way, a good company wouldn’t need to.
Don’t always go for the cheapest or the most expensive, normally the one between the two has studied the market better and can then provide the best.
Always read the small print!

Recommended course providers can be found on the Tiling Courses website and feedback about them can be found in the Tiling Courses Feedback Forum at the Tiling Forum. And there’s even a list of Tiling Courses on this website too.