Highlander FAQ

Highlander was formed in 1995 by Andy Gardiner, our MD and Senior Instructor. Andy teaches the majority of our courses to this day, and is a CompTIA Certified Technical Trainer and author of the book “Designing the Adobe InDesign Way” published by Packt. He was also an Adobe Certified Instructor for over a decade prior to Adobe’s closure of the authorised training program.

Like many businesses these days we operate a distributed business model, and as many of our courses are delivered Live Online this is a natural fit. Our Senior Instructor is based in York, however we also work with a number of other instructors based around the UK.

After 25 years in the business we have worked with the majority of the bigger organisations in the UK from FTSE 100 companies through to public sector organisations. We do however also work with a wide range of SME clients and independent consultants who need to upskill. Throughout the site you will see a selection of some of the organisations we have worked with.

Our training courses can all be attended live online, or as a private course for example if you have a team to train. With some courses we also have the option to take a pre-recorded version of the course which you can watch at your own pace.

Which option you choose will depend on factors such as your location, your budget and your timescale for learning. For example the live online instructor led courses tend to cost more than a pre-recorded course, but includes full instructor interaction throughout as well as after course support. As such it is a good option for companies with a training budget who need staff up to speed fairly quickly.

With the Live Online courses you log into a course from your own desk and attend online. The course is taught live by one of our UK based instructor, and the class sizes are capped at a maximum of 8 delegates. Throughout the course you can chat with the instructor and other delegates as you would in a classroom, and if you get stuck you can even share your screen with the instructor so they can give you advice.

The usual format involves students watching the instructor complete a task / explain a process, and then having a go themselves on their on machine, whilst asking any questions and clarifying anything that didn’t make sense.

Our default method for attending is live online, however we can offer classroom based training at your offices for closed courses.

We offer closed courses for companies both at their offices, and live online. This is something we have done for many years and our instructors have delivered private courses for organisations such as Burberry, Cath Kidston, Manchester City FC, Cisco, Companies House and the Scottish Parliament to name a few.

The courses start at 9.30am and typically finish around 4pm. As our group sizes are small there is a lot of focused attention on individual delegates, and as a result a lot of new information to take in on any one day.

We keep our class sizes fairly small to ensure the quality of the training is high.  Our scheduled public class sizes are capped at 8 delegates, while closed courses can cater for groups of up to 10 delegates.

The requirements to attend online are pretty minimal. You will need a computer, a stable internet connection and a headset. A reliable wifi connection is fine, but we recommend a wired connection as they are normally more reliable. If you have a dual monitor setup this makes it simpler as you don’t have to keep changing between the software and the presentation screen, but is not a requirement for the attending course.

We will send you the login details prior to the course, together with a link to the test page, which can be used to check things like your sound setup. You will also need to have a copy of the software you are learning installed on your machine prior to the course.

We offer post course support for everybody attending our classes. This comes in the form of video tutorials, as well as instructor led support which is available through email.