I took a few days off work last week, and did a brick laying course at Farnborough College (in Aldershot). I'd had my name down for the course for about a year, but it hadn't run due to both lack of teachers and lack of students. (I did their plastering course some years ago and that was excellent.) The brick laying course was also good, although it was the first time the teacher had taught it there, so he was having to feel his way around a bit (he teaches bricklaying in several prisons, and scaffolding surprisingly;-)
The course was good, and I picked up tricks of the trade, which is exactly what I was after. We built (and demolished;-) 4 or 5 different types of brick wall, and I got all mine perfectly level and vertical. Certainly gave me the confidence to tackle my own garden wall, which I'll be doing later this year. Of course, two other parts of my family have also got garden walls waiting to be rebuilt.
The course was £250 for 3 days, a vast increase on prices a couple of years ago (£80), but these courses have now lost their government funding (which was probably not justified for DIY training anyway).
It was quite interesting to see what else was going on in the building trades part of the college. Mostly it is full of kids fresh out of school (although still behaving as at school) doing their NVQ's or whatever. There was a vast area for the bricklaying, with all sorts of things being built (and demolished), such as cavity walls, fancy garden walls, brick arches, etc. The kids don't actually seem to spend much time working, and progress is very slow (didn't see much change in the 3 days I was there). Apparently, they don't take much notice of the teaching staff when told to use lines, levels, etc. although their brickwork mostly looked OK to me. There are also carpentry, decorating, plumbing, and electrical training areas. Unfortunately, there was no electrical training going on whilst I was there, which I would have liked to see. The plumbing was interesting, and again proceeding very slowly. I browsed down the cubicle rooms they work in, and had seemingly each been given the task of fitting 2 radiators in their room. Some had notices "assessment in progress - don't touch". For one or two of them, I wish I'd had a camera, such as a pair of radiators, one leaning back into the wall at an angle of about
10º, and the other leaning forward by the same amount! Most weren't that bad though. I don't think I'd let any of them do any plumbing for me though.