Scottish Traditional Skills Training Centre
Email: hello@traditionalskills.com
Phone: 01888 511 347
Contact us
About Us
The Scottish Traditional Skills Training Centre was established in 2006 in response to the growing crisis we are facing in the absence of the knowledge and skills necessary to meet the current and future conservation, regeneration and maintenance requirements of our traditional buildings and landscape heritage.
In order to provide a robust response to the challenges this presents, we are actively involved in developing and delivering a broad based demand-led education and training programme, to equip individuals and organisations locally and throughout Scotland with the knowledge and skills training necessary to meet both current and future requirements.
The Centre, which is a registered charity, is based at The National Trust for Scotland’s Fyvie Castle in Aberdeenshire, where we operate out of our own fully equipped, albeit temporary, pre-fabricated classroom/training facility, adjoining the walled garden and listed steading buildings. The surrounding gardens, landscape and woodlands provide an ideal environment for training in land-based countryside skills.
Why choose the Scottish Traditional Training Centre?
In the Course Directory we have outlined some of the key reasons why you should choose to come and study with us. We offer a wide range of programmes tailored to the needs of private individuals, those working in the construction industry and representatives of Conservation and Voluntary Organisations throughout the UK. Our courses bring together a rich blend of practical learning and classroom-based tuition taught by recognised experts in their fields.
Course content ranges from foundation level programmes targeted at those wishing to start the journey of building their traditional skills, to intermediate level programmes, which extend capability from a working knowledge to skilful application. We also offer advanced programmes, both in practical application and the skills required to assess, plan and project management built heritage projects. Pelase see our Course Directory for an overview of the Centre’s programmes and developing curriculum.
Health and Safety at Work
The Health and Safety of our Employees and Students is paramount. It is the Centre’s Policy, so far as is reasonably practicable:
- To provide and maintain plant and equipment and systems of work that are safe and without risks to health;
- To make arrangements for ensuring safety and absence of risks to health in connection with the use, handling, storage and transport of articles and substances.
- To provide such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure the health and safety at work of employees and students and visitors.
- To maintain any place of work under the Centre’s control in a condition that is safe and without risks to health and to provide and maintain means of access to and egress from it that are safe and without such risks.
- To provide and maintain a working environment for employees and students that is safe and without risks to health and is adequate as regards facilities and arrangements for their welfare at work.
- To provide such protective equipment as is necessary for the health and safety at work of employees and students.
- To encourage staff to set high standards of health and safety by personal example, in order that students leaving the Centre should take with them an attitude of mind which accepts good health and safety practice as normal.
- To monitor the effectiveness of health and safety provisions within the Centre, if any.
- To keep the Centres Health and Safety Policy under regular review and to duly publish any amendments.
Child Protection Policy
The Scottish Traditional Skills Training Centre (STSTC) is committed to safeguarding the welfare of children and young people in its care. In this respect the STSTC acknowledges its position of responsibility and trust in all aspects of its work with children and young people. To this end, the STSTC has developed its Child Protection Policy to support its education and training staff in putting into practice this commitment.
This policy establishes the roles and responsibilities of everyone who works for and on behalf of the STSTC in relation to the protection of children and young people with whom their work brings them into contact. In the context of the STSTC child protection policy, children and young people refers to anyone under the age of 18. Those “who work on behalf of the STSTC” includes individuals employed by the Centre concerned in the delivery of its education and training programme. This policy is based on and reflects the principles of both Scottish and UK legislation as well as the guidance contained in relevant Local Authority Education Department policies and procedures. The approach adopted by the STSTC has been developed in such a way as to be consistent with “best practice” within the field of child protection. The key principles of which are:
- The welfare of the child or young person is the paramount consideration;
- All children and young people, regardless of age, disability, gender, racial or ethnic origin, religious belief and sexual identity have a right to protection from harm or abuse.
It is also the duty of all concerned with the delivery of the STSTC’s education and training programmes, which in their work ensure the protection of children and young people. To this end, all involved in the delivery of the Centre’s education and training programmes for children and young people are expected to at all times maintain a sense of proportion, apply common sense to situations and as a priority, protect the child’s welfare.
It is also the duty of all concerned with the STSTC who in their work for the Centre come in contact with children and young people to ensure that they are never placed in situations where abuse might be alleged. It is not intended that the policy should restrict training staff from normal ways of working, but all whose work for the STSTC brings them into contact with children and young people must always consider how any action or activity may be perceived, as opposed to how it is intended.
Equal Opportunities Policy
The Scottish Traditional Skills Training Centre (STSTC) is an Equal Opportunities Employer and as such is committed to the implementation of employment practices which will ensure that no potential, current employee or contracted staff member* is treated less favourably on the grounds of Sex, Marital Status, Race, Nationality, Ethnic Origin, Age, Class, Sexual Orientation, Colour or Disability or any other grounds which cannot be justified.
As an equal opportunities employer, the STSTC is fully committed to establishing and maintaining a working environment in which employee recruitment and the contracting of staff members is based solely upon merit. We will ensure that no employee or contracted staff member is treated less favourably on the grounds of Sex, Marital Status, Race, Nationality, Ethnic Origin, Age, Class, Sexual Orientation, Colour or Disability or any other grounds which cannot be justified. Therefore the STSTC will ensure that all selection decisions will be made solely on ability, using objective, job related criteria. The STSTC will provide terms and conditions, training, promotion and appraisal without regard to Sex, Marital Status, Race, Nationality, Ethnic Origin, Age, Class, Sexual Orientation, Colour or Disability. We state to all employees and contracted staff members that any acts of discrimination, including harassment will be grounds for serious disciplinary action and complaints will be raised through the grievance procedure.
To this end, within the framework of the law, we will wherever practical, endeavour to achieve and maintain a workforce representative of the local community in which we operate. We will monitor the implementation of the policy via a programme of action, which will be regularly reviewed and updated. Overall responsibility for the application of our equal opportunities policy rests with the Project Manager and the STSTC Board. In addition to our commitments as an equal opportunities employer, the STSTC will endeavour to ensure that all of the partners and external companies, organisations and contractors with whom we work or are in other ways associated have in place an Equal Opportunities Policy.
*Note: Contracted staff members include those individuals employed to assist the delivery of the STSTC’s educational and training programme, as well as its contracted consultancy services.