Taking a course online
Taking a NEBOSH health and safety training course online can be a great option for developing your skills and career in a way that’s flexible and easy to mould around your home and working life.
Typically, our training courses have been structured around several days of training at a conveniently located venue, but as with any event with a fixed date and location, not everybody benefits from where the course is delivered.
Our e-learning courses have always been a popular option for those that don’t want to travel, don’t have the capacity to travel, or simply don’t have the time.
This is why we developed our e-learning platform, to allow those that want to build up their skills on their own schedule to do so.
This article will highlight some of the things that you can do in order to improve the way that you undertake an online health and safety training course.
Plan your course around your life
Only you can know what time have available to dedicate towards your training. If you don’t know how long you will have spare to work through the course, it may be a good idea to start recording what you are doing and when you have spare time that you feel could be used for training.
While I was studying for my NEBOSH General certificate, I would spend the spare 30 minutes that I had each morning before starting work going through my e-learning course. I personally found that it was a good way to start getting my brain activated for the working day, and each of those 30-minute sessions soon added up to quite a lot of progress through the course. As it drew closer to my exam, I started to put aside a little more of my spare time for revision.
If you are able to see the course as a commitment to complete and your allocated time for learning as an appointment to keep, you will be able to get into a better rhythm with your training, and you may find that the course fits the spare time you have much easier.
Staying motivated
Our online courses have been designed to be unitised and linear, to allow you to work through the course materials section by section, and see a clear percentage that reflects how much progress you have made.
As you work through the course you will be developing your knowledge of important health and safety topics, so make sure to celebrate your achievements along the way. Health and Safety is a complex subject, and any little thing that you learn can make a big difference to your understanding of how to keep yourself and other people safe. Make sure to celebrate this by setting milestones and goals to achieve along the way, as well as celebrating finishing the course.
If you say to yourself, “I want to complete unit 3 by the end of next month”, and then complete this goal on time, you should make sure to look back and be proud of what you have achieved. It’s a great way to keep yourself motivated, and to encourage yourself to keep learning. This is especially important when learning online, as it’s unlikely that anyone else will encourage you, or know how much progress you have made.
Revision methods
Within the course
Each one of our online courses has been designed to reflect the relevant syllabus requirements closely. Some courses contain sample questions that you can send through to our tutors for feedback, and exercises that have been designed to help you to develop your knowledge of health and safety.
In your day to day
As you work through your online course, one of the best ways to improve retention of information is to make sure that you are relating what you are learning to your life. Whether that is to your current role, to an imaginary role, or just things that you do around the house. For example, if you are on a fire safety course qualification, why not perform a fire risk assessment of your home?
You could highlight all of the areas that risks are present such as higher fire risk appliances and electrical devices, create a plan to check your fire alarms or even imagine how you would position fire extinguishers across the building to be compliant with the law if it was a business.
Create your own resources as you work through the course
Flash cards are a great way to remember key points, important acts or laws, and statistics.
Mind Maps are great for breaking down complex or multi-axial topics into smaller points, and provide a really good reference materials for revision or after the completion of your course.
Apply what you learn to your workplace
If you hold responsibilities for the management of health and safety, you’re in a prime position to practice what you’re learning. Each element of the course holds it’s own significance in regards to developing your skillset, and if you learn more about risk assessment for example, you could conduct a risk assessment within your workplace to put your course into practice (and in some cases in preparation for your assessment). You can then revisit this risk assessment when you have completed another element and see if there is anything that you have missed, or anything extra to consider.
Study Books and supporting publications
We have a wide range of publications available for our courses, including some study books that have been specifically designed to accompany those that are undertaking a course. Each study book is packed full of knowledge, further reading and interesting content, so in a sense it’s almost a physical copy of the e-learning course. This makes it a great companion to the course as you can use it on the go, or if you fancy a break from a screen.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
Many of our e-learning courses have support features built in, and all come with technical support if required.
If you’re struggling with your course, it is always a good idea to reach out to our team and see if there is anything that we can do to help you.