Chameleon School of Construction Ltd - Chesterfield

Tom Moore

Earlier this year I took a 5 day plastering course at the staveley centre The course tutor Ricky is a real asset to the business, because he's a properly skilled, time served, experienced tradesman, who actually knows what he's doing, and has proper experience of site work. Within 5 days he'd taken me from someone who had never plastered, to somebody that could prepare the surfaces, plasterboard, and skim over to a fairly reasonable standard, repair damaged plasterboard and hardwall, as required repair surface imperfections prior to painting. Ricky quite clearly stated at the start of the course that it would take longer than 5 days to kearn become a plasterer, but if you're thinking of taking plastering up as a career, and want to try your hand at it before committing to a full nvq course as I did, I strongly recommend taking this course, as it gives you a really good insight into the job as you'll be doing all of your own mixing and preparation etc. I've already earned back the cost of the course as the skills I was physically able to demonstrate after completion, combined with a previous engineering qualification helped me achieve an interesting varied role as an industrial buildings maintenance person. The only minor negative points I could find were that due to a cold snap and a lack of heating in the building I had to rearrange my last few days work and some of the equipment and lighting there isn't the best, but this adds more realism to the experience as conditions are never perfect when plastering in the real world. Ricky's teaching method seems a little unorthodox at first as he allows you to work unsupervised and actually make mistakes rather than guiding you step by step, but it quickly became apparent that this is deliberate and extremely useful as it allows you to learn how to fix your own mistakes and get yourself out of a hole when the job starts going wrong when you're on your own, which is by far the most useful thing you'll learn, Highly recommend 👍👍👍👍👍

Jules Swindel

Only a few weeks in at the Ripley training centre and I can highly recommend the bricklaying course. A great atmosphere for learning and already I’ve surpassed what I believed I was capable of building. I’m confident I will leave this course with skills of the highest standard.

Elliot Hester

I am currently doing my second year in plastering. The tutor is great and is teaching me to a very high standard. The free minibus pick up is very helpful as i wouldnt be able to attend without it.

Chris “Chip” wood

I came last year for a plastering diploma, the staff was that helpful and friendly I re applied for the tiling course the year after.. Would highly recommend anyone coming here to learn plastering or tiling.. Although Ben's lazy 😂

that British guy

I would recommend Chameleon to anyone looking for a qualification in construction. All the staff are very friendly making it an enjoyable learning experience.

Mike Walker

Very good place to learn, I would advise anyone to come here.

Raheel Sakhi