Technical training programs: workshop instructors, safety training, stock and timetables

Workshops are the most expensive part of a technical institute to run. A classroom needs chairs and a board. A workshop needs machines, power, ventilation, protective equipment, a steady supply of consumables and instructors with real trade experience, who are hard to replace when they leave. Small planning mistakes cost money here, such as a batch that arrives to find the store out of filler rods, or a trainee at a lathe who missed the safety induction.

Plan workshop time around workstations

Workshop capacity is set by workstations: booths, bays, benches, sewing machines, test boards. For example, a welding shop with 10 booths can have 10 trainees welding at once, whatever the size of the batch. A batch of 20 therefore needs two groups, or a rotation where half the batch is at the booths while the other half does preparation or theory.

Practical sessions also need longer blocks than theory lessons. Setting up, safety checks and cleaning down can take half an hour between them, so a 40-minute slot leaves almost no time for the work itself. Many institutes book practical sessions of two to four hours. Plan maintenance time as well, so machines are serviced outside assessment weeks.

Workshop instructors: availability, cover and pay

Many workshop instructors still work in their trade, so some teach part time or on set days. Collect their availability before you build the timetable. Another teacher can usually cover a theory lesson at short notice. A workshop session needs someone qualified in that trade and safe on those machines, so keep a cover list for each workshop with the names of people who can step in.

Leave needs more planning around assessment weeks, when every instructor is needed. Ask for leave requests early and agree a rule, for example no planned leave in the two weeks before end of term assessments. Pay is easier when instructors' attendance and leave are recorded the same way as everyone else's, because unpaid leave and absences are then already known when payroll is prepared.

Keep each instructor's own records current too: trade qualifications, the machines they are cleared to supervise, and first aid or safety training with its expiry date.

Safety training before the first workshop session

No trainee should use a machine before passing a safety induction. A typical induction covers protective equipment, machine guards and emergency stops, electrical isolation, fire and first aid, and the house rules of that workshop. End it with a short check, written or practical, and record who passed and on what date.

Repeat the induction when a trainee moves on to new machines, and refresh it each term or each year. A trainee who does not pass retakes it before joining the workshop. Medical notes matter here as well. An instructor supervising hot work needs to know about any condition that affects it, and that information has to reach the instructor without being shared with the whole batch.

Tools and consumables

Tools and consumables need different habits. Tools stay in the workshop and come back after each session. Consumables are used up: welding rods, cable, pipe fittings, engine oil, filters, fabric, thread. For tools, a shadow board and a check at the end of every session show a missing spanner the same day. For consumables, the questions are how much each batch uses and when to reorder.

Set a reorder level for each consumable from what a batch uses in a typical month, plus the time your supplier takes to deliver. Record what is taken out for each batch or session, so you can see which batches use more than expected. Count the store at least once a term. Over a year, these records also give you a consumables cost per trainee, which helps when you set next year's course fees.

An example: a motor vehicle workshop

Hillcrest Technical Institute is fictional. For example, its motor vehicle workshop has 8 bays, two batches of 20 trainees and two instructors: one full time, and one who comes in on Saturdays from a local garage.

Each batch is split into two groups of 10. While one group works in the bays for a three-hour session, the other is in a theory room, and the groups swap after the break. The full-time instructor takes the weekday sessions, and the Saturday instructor runs extra practice before assessments.

Engine oil is counted in litres, oil filters and spark plugs in pieces, and shop rags in boxes. In this example, the first count of the term found 12 litres less oil than the records showed. Instructors had used it for demonstrations without writing it down. From then on, every session's use was recorded against the group, and the next count matched.

How SkoolBro supports workshop operations

In SkoolBro, each campus has its own periods with start and end times, and its own rooms with a capacity, so each workshop is set up as a room. A batch is set up as a class section, and its weekly timetable puts a subject, an instructor and a room into each period. SkoolBro will not book the same instructor or the same room into two batches in one period, and it lists any clashes it finds. A long workshop session is booked as consecutive periods. Each section has one lesson per period, so if your batches split into workshop groups that run at the same time, set each group up as its own section.

Instructors are staff members, grouped into departments such as Automotive or Electrical, with the designations you choose. Staff attendance is marked present, absent, late, half day or on leave. Leave has types, balances and approval, and nobody can approve their own request. Payroll works from salaries and their components, takes off unpaid leave, needs a second person to approve it and gives each instructor a payslip. SkoolBro does not hold instructors' qualification or safety training documents, so keep those in your own staff files.

There is no separate safety module. You can set up workshop safety as a subject and run the induction as an assessment with a pass mark, so each trainee's result and date are on record, and a person can issue a safety card from the "other" certificate template. Medical notes on a trainee's record are restricted to people allowed to see sensitive details. For assessed workshop tasks, see practical assessments and training records.

For stock, each workshop store is a location at its campus. Items have a code, a category, a unit such as litre, piece or box, and a reorder level. You record stock in with the supplier, the cost per unit in your currency and a bill reference; stock out with who it was given to, such as a group or an instructor; transfers between stores; and counts, which set the quantity on the shelf and record the difference. The history can be filtered by location and type, and a filter shows the items running low. The AI assistant can also tell you in plain words which items are at or below their reorder level. Inventory does not follow a single tool lent to a trainee with a return date, so keep your shadow board checks. For planning several intakes at once, read about training batches and course schedules, and the feature overview lists the rest.

Questions

How many trainees should one workshop instructor supervise?

It depends on the trade and the machines. Many institutes set a lower number for hot work, power tools and live electrical work, and build that number into the timetable before batches are split into groups.

How do we record safety induction in SkoolBro?

There is no separate safety module. Set up workshop safety as a subject and run the induction as an assessment with a pass mark, so each trainee's result and date are on record.

Can SkoolBro track which tools each trainee has borrowed?

Not yet. Inventory records stock in, stock out, transfers and counts at each store, and shows who stock was given to, but it does not track one tool lent out with a return date.