This week the team from Land Drilling NVQ completed another week training the BDA Apprentices, 12 apprentices from Soil Engineering, Arcadis, WJ UK, Sirius and Alun Griffiths completed modules in Geology and Drilling Applications. We used the offices at Soil Engineering who helped us facilitate a laboratory tour and yard tour allowing the apprentices to visually see what they had learned about in the classroom. We also had the opportunity to visit a HS2 Socotec site which the apprentices found interesting and a great way of seeing all of the different drilling applications in action.
The first 2 days were assisted by Michael De Freitas - Chartered Geologist, UK Registered Ground Engineering Adviser and specialist in geological processes governing geotechnical properties, groundwater flow, and the response of the ground to engineering, based on a career of teaching, research and consulting. Some of the areas taught during the course included; the history of geology, it’s importance to drillers, what geology deals with, geological disciplines, application and uses of geological knowledge and geology descriptions.
The following 3 days covered Drilling Applications delivered by Lee Allardyce, we started the week with a site visit to Socotec HS2 site. The apprentices learned about different drilling applications such as CP, DS, Rotary and Sonic. The apprentices also completed a yard tour around Soil Engineering where they got to see a range of different drill tools and rigs. With this module we covered the following areas; drilling methods, different drill rigs, cutting technology, resource extraction and much more.
Both courses were extremely well received by the apprentices, and we will be completing the next modules in 2022 with the aim of then completing their NVQ’s once all modules are complete.
We would like to thank Michael De Freitas, Soil Engineering and Socotec for assisting with the week.