Category Archives: coaching

UPCOMING COURSES IN OCTOBER 2022

We have a selection of open courses planned to run in Chesterfield in October that you may be interested in:
    • G202 Foundations and Building Settlement – Principles and Practice on 20 October 2022: This course aims to develop the abilities of the delegates in the design of shallow foundations and the prediction of settlements. Cost £250 + VAT per delegate.
    • PR402 The ICE Professional Review – Preparing for the Interview (maximum of 4 delegates) on 25 October 202: This course is for ICE graduates preparing for their review; it is recommended that this course be taken prior to the submission of CPR/IPR report as following feedback delegates may wish to amend their report.  Cost £335 + VAT per delegate.
    • G102 Fundamentals of Geotechnical Engineering (1.5 days equivalent) on 27 October 2022: This ‘long day’ course is mainly for engineering geologists and civil engineers that do not specialise in geotechnical engineering, and aims to develop a core understanding of how soils behave in principle and applies it to some geotechnical problems such as foundations.  Cost £335 + VAT per delegate.
Please contact us for more information or to book a place on any of these courses. Details of courses in November and December can be seen in our calendar, downloadable using the link on the home page.      

PREPARATIONS FOR ICE PROFESSIONAL REVIEW IN SPRING 2020

With the application window for the Spring 2020 Professional Review session with the ICE opening in January, those planning to apply will no doubt be planning for it already.  This will include plenty of revision and refresher reading as well as preparing for your interview. As a long-standing reviewer for the ICE, our Dr Andy Goodwin reminds you of his 6 top tips to help you prepare below:
  • Read your draft Professional Report again and again, and get others to read it too (they will read what it actually says and read between the lines…)
  • Ensure your report addresses all of the required attributes in a well-balanced way; try marking in the margins of a draft which attribute each paragraph relates to and tally them up
  • Practice your presentation, to yourself and others, to ensure when under pressure you stay within the time limit
  • Read through your quarterly reports and other records of your experience, to refresh your memory and identify good examples of how you have achieved each sub-attribute
  • Revise your knowledge and understanding of all things civils related
  • Practice your interview skills
As you prepare you may find some gaps in your understanding, or feel you are in need of some refresher training.  If so, we offer a wide range of courses may assist you.  Our top recommendations are:
  • Two half-day courses on The ICE Professional Review – Overview and Preparation, and The Professional Report, on 15 October (discount for both courses) 
  • Commercial and Contractual Awareness on 19 November
  • Two half-day courses on the CDM Regulations 2015 on 3 December (discount for both courses) 
  • The ICE Professional Review – Preparing for the Written Exercise on 10 December
If any of these courses are of interest then please contact us for details or to make a booking.  Equally, if you want to know what other courses may assist you then feel free to contact us.

APRIL NEWSLETTER ISSUED

We are pleased to confirm that our April 2019 newsletter has just been issued.  For those who are not registered on our mailing list, you can download it from here .  You can also opt to join our newsletter mailing list by following this link – it takes only a few seconds.  Rest assured we never pass your information to third parties, as stated in our privacy statement.

MENTORING PLAUDIT

We were delighted to receive recently a fantastic plaudit from Sam Fish for the mentoring support he has received from our Dr Andy Goodwin.  Highlights from the plaudit included: “…I couldn’t rate Andy highly enough…. as an ICE Reviewer for many years, his understanding of the chartered professional review process is excellent and very helpful to his mentees…. my progression as an engineer is a direct result of his coaching and ability to draw the best out of me.” The full plaudit may be read here.  Andy was hugely appreciative of the comments from Sam, and is looking forward to continuing to support his other mentees in the same vein.  Feel free to contact us without any obligation if you or your graduates require any mentoring support.

CPD IDEAS FOR SPRING 2019 REVIEWS

As regular readers know, we have a regular section on CPD in our newsletters, with links to follow-up information.  They are useful for anyone but those in this post are especially useful for graduates pursuing professional registration with the ICE with the Spring 2019 session imminent: Leadership in HSW – One of the sub-attributes that must be demonstrated to be successful at a Chartered Professional Review with the ICE relates to leading continuous improvement in health, safety and welfare.  Examples should be drawn from your own experience, but it is a good idea to keep up to date with what others are doing.  A good reference point is the Considerate Constructors Best Practice Hub which may be found here. Quality Management – Quality management is more than quality assurance or quality control, as discussed in an article on total quality management published on the Designing Buildings Wiki in December 2018.  It is worth a read – just follow this link. Managing Diversity – Diversity should come up at every professional review, whether it be for IEng or CEng.  It is always good to read around this topic before your review, and to relate what you read to what you see at work.  There are numerous articles and books on the subject. but one that is worth reading was published in 2013.  It particularly relates to the public sector.  It can be downloaded from here. If you want to see other CPD ideas, you can look back at previous newsletters by following this link.

PREPARATIONS FOR ICE PROFESSIONAL REVIEW IN SPRING 2019

With the application window for the Spring 2019 Professional Review session with the ICE now closed, we wish all candidates every success.  By this stage you will be in the final stages of your preparations, which will include revision and refresher reading as well as preparing for your interview. As a long-standing reviewer for the ICE, our Dr Andy Goodwin provides his 6 top tips to help you prepare below:
  • Read your draft Professional Report again and again, and get others to read it too (they will read what it actually says…)
  • Ensure your report addresses all of the required attributes in a well-balanced way; try marking in the margins of a draft which attribute each paragraph relates too and tally them up
  • Practice your presentation, to yourself and others, to ensure when under pressure you stay within the time limit
  • Read through your quarterly reports and other records of your experience, to refresh your memory and identify good examples of how you have achieved each sub-attribute
  • Revise your knowledge and understanding of all things civils related
  • Practice your interview skills
As you prepare you may find some gaps in your understanding, or feel you are in need of some refresher training.  If so, we offer a wide range of courses may assist you.  Our top recommendations are:
  • The ICE Professional Review – Preparing for the Interview on 19 February and 5 March; each course is strictly limited to a maximum of 4 delegates, to maximise your learning opportunities
  • Essentials of Project Management on 7 February
  • Commercial and Contractual Awareness on 7 March
  • Two half-day courses on the CDM Regulations 2015 on 12 March
If any of these courses are of interest then please contact us for details or to make a booking.  Equally, if you want to know what other courses may assist you then feel free to contact us.

MORE MENTEES

We are delighted to announce that in recent months we have taken on numerous new mentees.  Based from as far afield as Romania to our locale in the East Midlands, they all share a drive to achieve professional qualification with the ICE and want to work with our Dr Andy Goodwin.  Andy is a very experienced ICE reviewer and is working with them as they follow Career Appraisal or Approved Mentor Supported routes to membership. Welcome to Mihail, Victor, John, Richard and Rory – no surnames or companies for confidentiality, but you all know who you are!

GENTLEMEN DO LUNCH…

At the pile design course last month, lunch was taken in the ‘heritage room’ of The Hub in Clay Cross.  This quirky room that celebrates local history combined well with the “cream tea lunch” to give everyone a welcome break from the rigours of the course!

Feedback from the course was excellent – 100% of responses rated it excellent to good, with most in the excellent category.  This backed up with the news that we can already look forward to welcoming some delegates back for other courses this year!

NEWS SNIPPETS

As regular readers know, we have a section on CPD in most of our newsletters, with links to follow-up information.  As a new idea, we are going to start to capture also some broad news items that affect the industry and ourselves.  We found the following news snippets and links useful and we hope you agree. British Standards and Brexit  – This is a common topic on our courses so the recent statement from BSI that they will continue as a member of ISO, IEC, CEN and CENELEC is likely to be of interest to many.  They went on to state “UK stakeholders have overwhelmingly expressed their support for the UK to remain committed to the adoption of international and European standards as the national standard, used as today.”  More information on what this means can be found by using this link, and their February 2018 standards position statement can be read here. Planning Update – The revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) has recently been updated and on 1 October 2018 new Regulations will come into force regarding pre-commencement conditions.  A Quick Guide on the changes has been prepared by Lithos Consulting, who we thank for their permission to circulate their guide. BIM Update – The first two international standards relating to the organization of information about construction works are to published in late 2018.  They are BS EN ISO 19650–1 (concepts and principles) and BS EN ISO 19650-2 (information management in delivery).  These standards will supersede BS 1192 (principles) and PAS 1192 part 2 (capital/delivery phase) respectively. An update that should help answer some of the questions on the UK transition can be found here. Health Safety and Welfare – Though industry magazines regularly carry HSW news, we find it useful to keep an eye too on the latest HSE press releases.  There were numerous construction related posts just in July and August, which highlight that we as an industry need to keep emphasising and focusing on HSW throughout a project. If you want to register to receive our newsletter, just follow this link and enter a few details.  Rest assured we will protect your privacy.