The Brew Cabin

Posted: **Thu Apr 10, 2014 5:34 pm**

got a young lad who is very keen to become an apprentice paver is there an actual apprenticeship in paving if so whats it called and how do I go about sorting this out any help appreciated

Posted: **Fri Apr 11, 2014 7:08 am**

Probably CITB groundworks.
I have been looking for similar but ideally a hard landscaping course, but there are only a handful of training providers countrywide.
I cannot believe that in an industry which is so much much larger than when I started 20 plus years ago that there are still limited training opportunities.

The local college which used to be horticulture and agriculture; now bricklaying, sports science, flower arranging, equine management etc, it's so short sighted.

Posted: **Fri Apr 11, 2014 7:23 am**

tony its irrelevant because all college is now is HSE stuff (mainly)
what about streetworks?
LLL

Posted: **Fri Apr 11, 2014 7:32 am**

ive looked for street mason and street works nothing coming up might try citb see what they come up with

Posted: **Fri Apr 11, 2014 10:23 pm**

My younger brother has a qualification in modular paving. I think it's an NVQ. I'll ask him when I see him next.

Posted: **Sat Apr 12, 2014 11:25 am**

Very difficult to get in the paving game now unless your eastern European and prepared to work on there rates!
The street works course is the nearest I've experienced to an actual course but the best way is to learn on site with an experienced paviour

Posted: **Sun Apr 13, 2014 8:10 pm**

Streetworks is the ticket for digging up the public highway etc

Tony McC mentioned starting up a course run by himself

I'd send a couple of boys on it, if he got it up and running.

Posted: **Mon Apr 14, 2014 6:02 pm**

I have city and guilds roadwork craft from years ago and nvq level 2 modular paving from a few years ago ( money spinner) .

Posted: **Mon Apr 14, 2014 6:04 pm**

Michael from sidcup you are quite right .my mate from sidcup and myself are the only English gang in the borough I work for . For the firm with a castle named after them

Posted: **Wed Apr 23, 2014 12:34 pm**

There is an apprenticeship in paving - I know because I wrote it - but for political reasons, it has *never* been implemented. This is partly due to maladministration and partly due to the way apprenticeships are financed.

It was explained to me by someone nameless at CITB that while they received funding to *develop* apprenticeship schemes, they got nowt once they were up and running, and for minority trades such as paving/streetmasonry, they would most likely end-up subsidising the schemes because of relatively low numbers compared to, for example, brickwork or plastering.

We were on the very brink of having the first batch of apprentices put through the scheme when, for reasons which the administrator point blank refused to explain to me, the whole project was cancelled. Now, I know there was a clash of personalities between the admin and meself, but that should NOT have been taken out on 6 apprentices who had their career path dismantled for reasons of personal petty spite.

As far as I know, the sceme is 'available but not active', which means it's parked on a shelf at the CITB offices in Loughborough, gathering dust while our trade cries out for skilled workers. Shameful!

Meanwhile, there are at leat two, possibly three flavours of NVQ Level 2 in modular paving. There is definitely a landscaper-oriented course, referred to as Amenity Horticulature Modular Paving (I wrote that one, too!) and there is a civil-engineering oriented course known simply as Modular Paving, which is pretty much the same. The one sane person at CITB told me some time ago that there is also a General Builders' Modular Paving NVQ but that it isn't active. There were discussions about amalgamating all of these into one, single NVQ and so avoid duplication of admin and paperwork, and, hopefully, reduce costs, but as one course is adminsitered primarily by CITB and t'other by BALI, it involved one monolithic bureaucracy giving way to another monolithic bureaucracy with the inevitable stalemate.

So, just to complicate things even further, the powers that be decided to launch a National Highways Sector Scheme (NHSS30) which is another balls-up. If there's one thing the British do really well, it's to form committees to make simple matters incredibly complex and unworkable!

This NHSS30 (announced here) is intended to stipulate suitable methodologies for streetwork paving but the pillocks in charge (who are largely the same pillocks that gave us the BS7533 re-write cock-up at the turn of the year) are hell-bent on insisting that the ability to lay complex ring radii in flags, correctly lay out dropped tactile crossings at oblique angles, and lay setts to bogen and fan patterns, is worthy of no more than NVQ2 level, which only goes to show how frigging little they actually know about laying paving.

I did mention this (at the top of my voice) at the public meeting which set-up NHSS30 but as this glaring oversight was an obvious embarrassment to them, they instructed me not to ask any further difficult/awkward questions. TRUE STORY!

So: as it stands, there are NVQs, but you need an employer to sponsor you through them and, to be brutally frank, you will learn more by reading this website. The Modern Apprentice Program is buried somewhere in Loughborough, and NHSS30 is ploughing ahead with scant regard for what is actually needed by the trade and with no active participation from experienced contractors!

I'd better stop now. This completely farcical suituation is not good for my blood pressure and as I'm only just up from my sick bed, I'd better take a blast of GTN and sit in a darkened room for an hour or so.

Posted: **Wed Apr 23, 2014 1:14 pm**

I learnt most stuff from this site after stumbling on it and realising most of what I had been taught was pretty crap.

If the person you are wanting to employ is 'disadvantaged' - either unemployed for more than 6 months or has no A levels or highers then you can get Â£2300 from the government for employing them through some youth employment incentive scheme - that's what I'm looking in to just now.

Posted: **Wed Apr 23, 2014 1:34 pm**

Hope ya well tony mc if you start up your classes again I would be happy to do the practical side of it with your guidance would be a bit easier on me body :p

Posted: **Wed Apr 23, 2014 5:58 pm**

most people in the paving game either have familial ties or started off as bricklayers,groundworkers,or a variety of other trades (landscapers etc)
the thing is I think that paving is more technical than brick work as the falls are so imporatnt
I have tried to show loads of lads but they still make basic errors ===> laying patios level etc

LLL

Posted: **Wed Apr 23, 2014 8:17 pm**

Tony McC wrote:So: as it stands, there are NVQs, but you need an employer to sponsor you through them and, to be brutally frank, you will learn more by reading this website.

I learnt most if not everything i know about block paving from this site, i remember doing my first block paved driveway for me grans next door neighbour when i was 18, using this site as a reference.

After learning the basics its been all about fine tuning things, radius and curve detail, mitred corners, inboard etc

Posted: **Thu Apr 24, 2014 10:06 am**

Maybe I should set up a commission scheme for all the jobs that are done using this site as a guide!