Hi
Just wondered from those who have taken their transport manager’s CPC lately how they studied?
I’m looking at going with the RHA. Was intending on buying the home study material now and sitting the examination next winter.
Am interested to know from those who home studied how they got on. Was thinking about booking the course on the lead up to the exam, with some home study behind me.
Any thoughts appreciated.
Thanks
Karl
Not sure how many pass on the first attempt doing home study. Lots of places doing the course online, yes it requires time but at least the pass rate is higher on a class like environment and improves the chances. I’s suggest its a personal choice
I tried it by home study about 17 years ago when the OCR ran three part exams (2x MCQs plus the case studies) with International as a separate, additional option. I was new to trucking and was out of my league, I passed the MCQs but not the Case Studies.
More recently I did it as a two-week intensive classroom course on the OCR syllabus, these days International is included in the ordinary exams so you could argue it is more difficult now - it’s debatable - but I’m happy to passed everything in one go.
It’s intense, people fold or crack under the pressure: one guy lost the plot completely, after shouting and banging the table he ran out and had a full-on melt-down in the refreshments area 
Naturally as first choice I would recommend a proper course, or as a second choice you could even do the study online over a longer period of time: CILT do this with optional one-to-one sessions.
Bear in mind that across the nation, TM-CPC has a very high failure rate, only about 40-50% of candidates pass each time. If you try home study and do badly, it could dent your confidence to try again.
Many thanks Acorn and Zac_A for your replies.
I don’t really need it for what I do (at the moment) but I sort of want to challenge myself to do it.
I took over my dad’s business 9 years ago, he was national and got his through grandfather rights.
We only haul our own goods so I run restricted, but I want the opportunity to expand.
I was looking at an OLAT course but thought I’d get the home study TM CPC and go through it.
I should have done it in 2012 when I lost my dad, wouldn’t have had to sit the international syllabus then!
Some say the course is much harder than A level .
Hi,
I done the EOS home study course back in 2016. I had a great big folder from them which contains all the info required to pass the exam. For 4/5 months I took this folder everywhere with me had arms like Jeff capes at the end of it…
I took the exam with a local provider. All in including EOS material was about 300 notes from memory.
I passed it too.
My mate did the classroom based courses on it took him 4 attempts to pass.
I am not a academic by any means (I have the gcses results to prove this).
Give the home study a crack. But a bit of dedication and you will absolutely smash it.
Kebabkarlos:
I was looking at an OLAT course but thought I’d get the home study TM CPC and go through it.
It’s not a bad idea at all to do an OLAT, it’ll give you an idea of the very wide range of topics that is covered. Some places have their OLAT approved for DCPC so you could probably kill two birds with one stone if that suited you.
It’s hard to fault the EOS notes, that isn’t what I used on my first (failed) attempt, but I did second time around, but as Bola suggested, it’s a beast of a book to lug around!
eostraining.com/ProductDeta … EOS_RH_HSP
Hi someone mentioned there might be no OCR running exams anymore.
There might be some changes due to Brexit too so if you get study pack now, make sure you update it before taking exam.
I bought RHA pack and studied home for about 8days 10hrs a day just before exam.
Have passed Case study at first attempt but multichoice caught me off guard, got stucked at one numerical question several minutes and then was stressing till the end failing by 2 points…yes was depressed from it for about week.
Have past 3months later, but mainly because December multichoice questions were not so difficult than at my first attempt in September.
So as everything in life, you need luck too to pass.
Just waiting for my certificate to arrive…
OCR are indeed bowing out of delivering TM CPC, this next exam in March is (I believe) the last one for new candidates and the remaining exams until December will be just for resits.
However, the situation is complicated by a new kid on the block (Skills and Education Group) who are supposedly taking over from OCR as it currently is, without any changes, so a hopefully seamless transition. From EOS: “OCR have agreed to transfer the current qualification in its current format to the Skills and Education Group with CPC examinations commencing June/July.”
You can also choose to do TMCPC with RHA or CILT, these are independent of OCR and I don’t think either body recognizes the others, eg if you pass your R1 with RHA, OCR won’t recognize your R1 pass.
Thanks everyone.
Zac_A, is the RHA their own qualification then, not OCR?
Have got the home study pack ordered from RHA. I I told them I was intending to go through it for a few months before either sitting the exam, or then booking a course prior to exam, they said they would send out any free updates.
Thanks again, will update how I do.
Cheers
Karl
Truthfully, I don’t know the precise answer to that question.
All I know for certain is that recently (within the last six to eight months) I was speaking with someone who had booked onto an OCR-based TMCPC course and he was very displeased (understatement!) when he found out that his RHA R1 pass was not recognized by OCR.
Later someone mentioned in passing that RHA had changed their exam structure between this guy’s partial-pass and the present time, but I wouldn’t swear to the accuracy of that. I would have suggested contacting RHA for clarification, but with all the flux happening right now with TMCPC, they may not know for sure their selves 
but I’ve put their contact details below anyways.
If you end up doing one of their classroom courses, I would naturally expect covid-secure conditions, with lots of social distancing and small class sizes. The guy who I mentioned earlier said his pre-covid RHA course was one massive class, thirty or more people, and it was almost impossible to get the trainer to answer even a quarter of the questions he had. Perhaps that was just him though, he’s done the exams three times and still hasn’t passed both parts yet.
The OCR have their past papers online if you wanted to search them out, might make for informative reading. They also give Examiner’s Reports, ie potentially pass-achieving answers!
ocr.org.uk/qualifications/past-paper-finder/
A word of advice, the answers required are very precise, ie down to the minute (for scheduling questions) or to the penny (for costing questions), so you need to be extremely nit-picky with your studies.
Best of luck with it.
Contact RHA
Telephone: 01506 420 978
Email: trainingsconi@rha.uk.net
As an ex-tutor of TM CPC, I’d just add a few points to the excellent advice already given by Zac_A above.
Regardless of how the discussion about the awarding bodies pans out, anybody doing either the classroom or the home-study version would be well advised the TM CPC cannot be done in a half hearted way. For home study, I’d advise that a quiet room and total lack of disruption during study time is a prerequisite for most people.
For best results, I’d say it’s advantageous (but not absolutely essential) if you’re in some way familiar with road transport before commencing the course.
A person’s own calibre is also a factor.
A rough measure of calibre is that (ideally) the person taking the course needs to be of approx. “A” level standard because that’s the approximate level of what you’re attempting, so one (or more) “A” level(s) of a decent grade.
When I was teaching this CPC, some of the candidates weren’t very good with written English, so they struggled during the course and their exam fail rate was quite (unsurprisingly) high.
A very common reason for failing TM CPC exams, particularly the case studies, was that candidates simply didn’t read or understand the question.
When the question says “list three items that blah, blah blah…” it means make a LIST ( = DON’T write an essay)
When it comes to marking, the markers WILL have read the question, so they will look at the FIRST three things you’ve written. If you’ve written eight things and the good answers are #6, #7 and #8 on your list, then it wasn’t a good idea to have written the first five things. 
When you see a question inviting an explanation, they don’t want an essay full of stuff that doesn’t have any influence. For instance, the direction that the truck is facing doesn’t matter, nor does the colour of the driver’s socks or the price of fish. In other words, the answer needs to be succinct AND directly address what’s being asked, so don’t waffle with irrelevance!! A couple of well constructed sentences are normally enough to answer that type of question.
I’m sorry if this comes across as a bit blunt, but it’s true so I might just have saved you from some some future grief and a re-sit fee.
Good luck and please stay focused because SISO applies and so you’ll only get out the quality that you have first put in!!
Many thanks Zac_A and Diesel Dave, some great advice…
I’ll go through the home study material and see how I do. I don’t intend to skim through it then sit the exam.
Once I’ve got a “hopeful” understanding I’m planning on booking the classroom course with some knowledge behind me.
Kebabkarlos:
Many thanks Zac_A and Diesel Dave, some great advice…I’ll go through the home study material and see how I do. I don’t intend to skim through it then sit the exam.
Once I’ve got a “hopeful” understanding I’m planning on booking the classroom course with some knowledge behind me.
Hi KK,
That sounds like a plan, but… I’ll caution you that it’s possible to end up thinking/believing that you understand something, only to find out later that you hadn’t quite got it!
Learning is relatively easy if you’ve got somebody to ‘bounce’ with, but un-learning and then re-learning is quite difficult, not to mention time consuming!
There’s some help here though.
For the benefit of any who might be planning on doing TMCPC this year I thought I’d summarize some of the options:
As stated above, OCR are bowing out, March 2021 is the last enrollment for new candidates with them, the subsequent exams will be for resits only. This is despite the fact that the existing OCR scheme, based on the EOS note, is being directly taken over by a new training provider, Skills and Education Group, with their first exams to be run around June/July.
It’s worth pointing out that if you go the CILT route, they run their exams every two months rather than every three months.
Then there is the RHA route, but you’d have to get info direct from them as I confess I am not familiar enough with their setup. There may also be other avenues to the qualification I am not currently aware of.
Did my national and international around 10 yrs ago in a two week classroom course. I honestly don’t think I would have passed if I did a home study, the lecturer passed on a lot of good tips on how to READ the questions and understand what they were asking, from that answering the questions naturally followed. The international part was actually a peice of ■■■■ to any driver who had done European pre-92
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
GOG47:
The international part was actually a peice of ■■■■ to any driver who had done European pre-92
I make it that you’re spot on there mate.
I did Europe/Scandinavia with a few little nibbles at the commy block/TIR all through the 80s and for the first couple of years of the 90s.
I did my Nat and Int OP CPCs in '97, and as you say… the international part was a doddle.