Today our Training Officer Elaine Gilliland broke off from her involvement
in the Foundation Course weekend to attend the MREW organised ’Train the
Trainer’ course, which involved looking at training methods and methodology.

Held at the North Wales Base / HQ of NEWSAR Team at Colomendy Outdoor
Pursuits Centre, Loggerheads, near Mold, the course was attended by many MRT
members involved in training.

There follows an account of today by Team Training Officer Elaine Gilliland.

MREW Train the Trainers Course – NEWSART HQ

This morning I travelled to NEWSART HQ, at Colomendy Outdoor Pursuits Centre at Loggerheads, North Wales to attend the MREW Train the Trainers Course.

Feeling bleary eyed and a little less bushy tailed than usual after being involved with the Joint Foundation Course on Friday and Saturday, I joined MR members from a number of different teams across England and Wales to learn about, discuss and debate how to deliver appropriate training and continuous learning to mature learners within a mountain rescue environment.

The session was introduced by Huw Birrell who outlined the aims and objectives of the day and introduced our facilitators, Julie Birrell and Al Read.
Julie initiated the day by addressing Adult Learning and learning models such as Kolb Learning Cycle which gave all participants and good refresher – as most were teachers and/or facilitators themselves – and opened up good debate about consistency, issues and areas of concern within our own teams including the different levels and speed of learning that Training Officers and the experienced members in the teams who deliver training have to address.

Al then facilitated discussion about Training Design including team requirements – standards set by the teams themselves – understanding the needs and addressing them appropriately through planning, design, monitoring and review. This gave good basis for discussion about training and then the application of the learning into practice – training and applying the training at exercise scenarios to ensure members are competent at incidents. This included the writing of lesson plans outlining the aims, objectives, content, methods and resources required at each training event.

Then it was our turn – the dreaded ‘role play’.

The afternoon was spent outlining a lesson plan for an allocated session – no, we were not able to choose our own subject…….that would have been too easy – and then presenting the subject to our group and assessment by the members of that group.

The groans were audible!

But, it was a great way to apply the learning from the morning’s session and by the end of the day, everybody had presented, been assessed, had constructive feedback given to them by all and – well in my case anyway – had thoroughly enjoyed doing it.

I would like to thank Huw and Julie Birrell, Al Read and Mike Margeson for arranging this excellent course and allowing me to meet with members of other teams, refresh my knowledge and skills and challenging me in a constructive manner.