During #GroundsWeek, the Grounds Management Association (GMA) surpassed the significant milestone of 1,000 enrollments in online training over a 12-month period. The achievement highlights the continuing developments made by the GMA’s Learning department to provide better, more relevant training options for the grounds care sector.
The GMA began development of its suite of online training courses in May 2020 in response to the challenging conditions placed on those working in the sector due to Covid-19. The decision, made to support those looking to learn and develop over lockdown, has proven to be a success, with 1,000 online enrollments over the last 12 months and over 3,750 since May 2020.
With the aim of improving knowledge of important maintenance skills, how technical aspects of maintenance can influence overall pitch quality, and creating suitable annual maintenance programme, the GMA’s online training suite has been developed with all playing surfaces and levels in mind.
Training by the GMA, which has been accredited by the matrix Standard recognising the outcomes achieved by the association in delivering industry-wide information, advice, and guidance, has also been shown to improve learners in the development of ‘soft skills’. An impressive 86% of learners who completed an online training course stated that they had made Good to Significant improvement in a range of skills, including problem solving, confidence building and time management.
The current suite of online training courses includes Level 1 courses for all major sports, as well as the GMA’s first non-English training course written in Serbo-Croat-Bosnian. Levels 2 and 3 online courses support development of learners’ knowledge of more technical aspects of grounds maintenance, including winter pitch-care, cricket surfaces and more.
Dan Prest, Head of Technical and Learning at the GMA said:
“We’ve always looked at ways to tailor the GMA’s educational options so that they better suit the needs of today’s grounds industry. Seeing online training enrollments moving from strength to strength makes it all worthwhile.
“From working hard to develop and expand our online training suite during the Covid-19 pandemic to being reaccredited by the matrix Standard and launching the GMA’s first non-English language course, we’ve constantly sought new ways to inspire lifelong learning for the industry – surpassing 1,000 online enrollments over the last 12 months highlights that what we’re doing is working.”
To see the full list of online training courses available, visit: https://thegma.org.uk/learning/training
To speak to a member of the Learning team about your training needs, email learning@thegma.org.uk