External Area Maintenance and Grounds Keeping Training

Learning Outcomes

• Apply safety procedures and use personal protective equipment when maintaining external areas.
• Identify and select appropriate tools, equipment, and materials for specific groundskeeping tasks.
• Demonstrate basic horticultural techniques including planting, pruning, and watering.
• Maintain paths, driveways, and other hard surfaces to ensure safety and accessibility.
• Implement waste management and composting practices in external area maintenance.
• Evaluate the condition of external areas and report maintenance needs.

Target Audience

This course is designed for groundskeepers, maintenance workers, and facilities staff responsible for the upkeep of external areas. It is also suitable for supervisors overseeing grounds maintenance teams.

Prerequisites

None — open enrollment

Course Outline

Practicals

Overview

Learners apply theoretical knowledge through hands-on practice in a simulated grounds area. They perform mowing, edging, weeding, litter collection, and basic tool maintenance under supervision, reinforcing safe and efficient work practices.

Practical Activities

• Tool Identification and Safety Check — Learners inspect and identify hand and power tools (e.g., mowers, trimmers, rakes), perform pre-use safety checks, and demonstrate correct handling. (1h)
• Mowing, Edging, and Trimming — In a designated area, learners operate a push mower and line trimmer to cut grass, edge pathways, and trim around obstacles, following safety protocols. (2h)
• Weed Control and Litter Collection — Learners manually remove weeds from flower beds and paved areas, and conduct a litter pick of the grounds, sorting waste for disposal or recycling. (1h)

Summatives

Each delegate is assessed continuously throughout the course via daily exercises, scored practical assignments, and a final summative test at the end.

Practical Assignments — 30%

Practical assignments are observed and scored against a rubric during the practical sessions. Each delegate's practical mark is averaged into a single 100% score and contributes 30% to the final total.

Daily Exercises — 20%

Every training day ends with a multiple-choice exercise scored out of 100%. The scores from each daily exercise are averaged across the duration of the course to produce a Daily Average mark, which contributes 20% to the final total.

Final Test — 50%

On the last day a final summative test is written. It is a multiple-choice paper with multiple-answer questions: each question may have more than one correct option, and a single wrong selection on a question marks the entire question wrong — no partial credit. The final test is scored out of 100% and contributes 50% to the overall mark.

Final Total

Component	Out of	Weight
Practical Assignments (rubric-scored)	100%	30%
Daily Average (multiple choice)	100%	20%
Final Test (multi-answer multiple choice)	100%	50%
Final Total	—	100%

All marks are recorded on the AATICD LMS and visible to each learner under their account.

Certificate

How it works

• Certificates are auto-generated on the AATICD LMS as soon as the marks pass the 50% threshold.
• Each certificate is a branded PDF with the delegate's name, the course title, the unit standard ID, NQF level, credits, and the date of issue.
• You can download or print your certificate from your LMS dashboard at any time after issue — there's no reissue fee and no expiry date.
• If you scored under 50% you can sit the final test again at the next scheduled session at no extra cost.

Where to find it

Sign in to the LMS, open your dashboard, and your certificates appear under My Certificates. Each entry has a View / Download button and a print option.

Training Discounts

Group discounts apply automatically — the more delegates you enrol, the greater the saving. Discounts are calculated at 3% per 5 delegates, scaling up to 40% off for 100+ delegates.

Delegates	Discount
5	3% off
10	6% off
15	9% off
20	12% off
25	15% off
30	18% off
50	30% off
75	35% off
100	40% off

3% discount per 5 delegates, up to 40% off for 100+ delegates. Contact us for a custom group quote.