Last year, we started at a quarter to ten on the first day of our courses, and ended at about half past four on the last day. And indeed, hours like those are standard for EVERY day at some other establishments. How long lunch takes can be a significant factor too!

This year, we're starting daily at 09:00, and scheduled daily to 17:00. We may finish a little early on the last afternoon if all material has been covered to everyone's satisfaction, and we're dab hands at moving specific topics needed only by one or two trainees to the very end if other need to leave sharply for the airport or station.

But the customer experience extends even further than the extra hour. Our training centre, network, library, equipment is open to residential delegates 24 hours a day - giving good opportunity for another "go" in the evening and a quick revision before breakfast too. And for all delegates, whether or not they're staying, the tutor will be around from well before 8 (as I am this morning) until 6 or later on most days. When you come on a course, you need time to consolidate your learning as well as just attend the lectures.

Of course, we're unusual in that most of our delegates travel a long way to learn here (a niche business, and wherever we were people would have to travel), so we're fortunate to be able to offer this intensified and more effective training.

So how about going a step further? How about evening lectures? No. Or even "hell, no". There's a limit to how much people can take in during a session and during a day, and that would exceed it. We would be on to a diminishing return, exhausted delegates, complaints of a course they couldn't cope with. Better - much better - to make positive use of the time revising, discussing individual applications with other delegates and the tutor, and, yes, a tiny bit of socialising too.

Training limits:

* For a single type of session (e.g. lecture or practical), each session should be limited to ONE HOUR.

* A 15 minute nicotine and caffeine break should be taken every TWO HOURS

* Morning and afternoon sessions should not exceed FOUR HOURS of formal lectures or practicals each.

* The lunch break should not be less than 30 minutes, and should not generally exceed one hour.

There you have it - my formula for getting the most, and most effective, training done of your delegates.

With small class sizes and a course that's tuned as we run to cover the topics in the most effective manner for the group we have, we can achieve in 4 days what would take 5 if we increased our group size and used a prescribed standard presentation. Dear Reader, I wouldn't want to stretch it out to five days - I have plenty else to do, and I'm sure your delegate have too ... and you're paying them for every day they're here and not at their desks, aren't you?
(written 2007-01-15 07:35:16)

 G300 - Well House Consultants - Public Courses
  [2558] Happy new decade - and course and hotel prices for 2010 - (2010-01-01)
  [2341] Koulutus, Open Source tietokone kielillä - (2009-08-09)
  [2340] ldning, Open Source dator språk - (2009-08-09)
  [2339] Opplæring, Open Source datamaskinen språk - (2009-08-09)
  [2338] Uddannelse, Open Source computer sprog - (2009-08-09)
  [2337] Opleiding, Open Source computertalen - (2009-08-09)
  [2336] Formação, Open Source computador línguas - (2009-08-09)
  [2335] Ausbildung, die Open-Source-Sprachen - (2009-08-09)
  [2334] Formazione, Open Source computer lingue - (2009-08-09)
  [2333] Formación, de los lenguajes de código abierto - (2009-08-09)
  [2332] Formation, des langages Open Source - (2009-08-09)
  [2048] Learning to program in PHP, Python, Java or Lua ... - (2009-02-19)
  [1968] Review of 2008 - (2008-12-31)
  [1929] 2009 - Hotel, Meeting, Training Course prices - (2008-12-07)
  [1857] November and December Public Course Schedule - (2008-10-27)
  [1836] Next in the sequence - courses next year (2009) - (2008-10-12)
  [1751] Public Training Course Dates until July 2009 - (2008-08-13)
  [1693] July to December 2008 - Open Source training schedule - (2008-07-01)
  [1615] PHP training courses every month - (2008-04-18)
  [1565] Languages compared - based on developer community size - (2008-03-05)
  [1420] The Learning Perl crew, October 2007 - (2007-11-03)
  [1414] What we teach - expained for the non-technical - (2007-10-28)
  [933] Course Joining package - updated - (2006-11-20)
  [845] Course scheduling and Geekmas - are they traditions yet? - (2006-08-26)
  [646] PHP - London course, Melksham Course, Evening course - (2006-03-14)
  [387] Training course plans for 2006 - (2005-07-23)
  [181] Maximum number of trainees on a course - (2005-01-18)
  [172] Public courses in London - (2005-01-07)

G303 - Well House Consultants - During the course
  [2560] Training comparison to QA Training, Learning Tree, GB Direct. - (2010-01-02)
  [2342] Training Classes in other tongues - (2009-08-10)
  [1816] Holt on holt - (2008-09-29)
  [1466] Effective Java training - the bootcamp approach - (2007-12-09)
  [1459] Interactive training, and advancing techniques further - (2007-12-05)
  [1363] One computer per delegate, or pair programming? - (2007-09-23)
  [1245] Ensuring that our tutor answers YOUR questions - (2007-06-25)
  [670] Architectural Heritage - Devizes - (2006-04-04)
  [640] Training Centre Pictures - (2006-03-09)
  [570] Features and Benefits - (2006-01-20)
  [455] A Stengthening day - (2005-10-04)
  [342] The evening after the course - (2005-06-09)
  [273] Course Picture - (2005-04-09)
  [56] Dress Code - (2004-09-20)

G310 - Well House Consultants - A better class of course
  [2633] Why do I teach niche skills rather than mainstream? - (2010-02-13)
  [2187] Are we IITT (Institute of IT Training) members? - (2009-05-17)
  [2109] Why most training fails ... - (2009-03-30)
  [2084] Books and distance learning from Well House Consultants? - (2009-03-15)
  [2074] Weekday or Weekend PHP, Python and Perl classes? - (2009-03-10)
  [2049] Why Choose Well House Consultants for your course? - (2009-02-20)
  [2010] How long should a training module be? - (2009-01-27)
  [1933] Learning to Program in C - (2008-12-10)
  [1645] Seeing how others do it - PHP training - (2008-05-17)
  [1576] Making PHP and MySQL training relevant to the course delegates - (2008-03-15)
  [1488] New trainee laptop fleet for our Open Source courses - (2007-12-30)
  [1453] What makes our courses special? - (2007-12-02)
  [726] In praise of training course delegates. - (2006-05-20)
  [579] Short Linux and Perl courses for small groups - (2006-01-27)
  [577] Learning to program in Perl or PHP - (2006-01-26)
  [559] ''I don't know'' is sometimes a good answer - (2006-01-09)
  [554] What backup is adequate? - (2006-01-04)
  [497] I have a river to cross - (2005-11-16)
  [394] A year on - should we offer certified PHP courses - (2005-07-28)
  [371] The training team that's looking out for you - (2005-07-07)
  [350] Want to be one better - (2005-06-17)
  [292] Elegant languages - Perl, PHP, Python - (2005-04-26)
  [230] Course sizes - beware of marketing statistics - (2005-02-27)
  [224] YOUR application and YOUR data - (2005-02-22)
  [219] Some unusual features - (2005-02-18)
  [215] Open Source becomes mainstream - (2005-02-14)
  [211] Look after your staff and they'll look after you. AOL. - (2005-02-12)

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Forward to Python Qt, wX, TkInter, and Jython - training??

Know to the police
Impact Engineering and Backscatter
Python Qt, wX, TkInter, and Jython - training??
Longer hours and better value courses
The new web site look spreads
Empty at Easleigh, Missing at Melksham, Overflowing at Oldfield
Chronic fatigue help - a new discussion forum
robots.txt - a clue to hidden pages?
Hotel for Trowbridge
Our search engine placement is dropping.