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Cabin Crew Training - Top Tips! | Lauren's Lifestyle



Hello everyone, it's been some time. My previous blog post was written whilst I was finishing my master's degree, and a lot has changed since then.  I have become a qualified cabin crew member and have been flying a few months now. Today's post is a bit different than what I usually do, but it's a post that has been requested and a post that would have helped me prior to my training. This post will include tips on certain parts of the training as well as what to wear and getting through the exams. A lot of this is obviously tailored to my experience at training, so it goes without saying that different airlines etc. will do things differently. But hopefully, this will still help!

Clothing
The most important thing is to make sure you're comfortable but still pretty smart. You're going to be doing a lot of moving around during practicals and general training so you need to be able to work in what you wear. With that being said, I feel as though heels are a no go. For fire and safety training you will be required to wear flats for safety reasons anyway so it saves a lot of hassle. If you do though feel more comfortable in heels and wish to just switch between those and flats, go right ahead. You will be reaching into overhead lockers, crouching down in toilets and doing CPR on a dummy so the more practical your clothes and shoes, the better. After a few weeks, you might get asked to wear your uniform for the rest of your training which actually makes deciding what to wear a lot easier - just make sure you always wear it to uniform standard.

I mostly wore smart stretchy trousers with a cotton shirt or smart top. I also wore black dolly shoes which were perfect. A tip would be to make sure you wear a watch, and this will come in handy when learning your decompression drills.

Fire Smoke & Fumes
As a cabin crew member you will need to learn how to deal with a fire, smoke or fumes incident in case it happens on board the aircraft. e.g smoke in the toilet or fire in an overhead locker. Once you go through learning about fire smoke and fumes you will be able to think of different ways to approach each situation. The main things is that you remember to use your equipment - a BCF will be your best friend. Take your time and think through what you're doing. At the end of the day, you won't be fighting a real fire during training, though it may feel that way.

Ultimately the trainers want to see that you are being safe (protecting yourself, the other crew and your passengers) and that you know what to do should an incident happen on board.

Safety Equipment
Your safety equipment is so important. When you're a crew member it's the first thing you check when you get on board the aircraft. Examples of equipment include; oxygen, BCF, PBE, lifejacket and torch. There are other things that you will need to check too but you'll learn those. You will learn how to use these, the safety checks on them and how long they should last for.

In terms of revising for your SEP equipment assessments, use what is available to you. For my training, there was a room with all of the SEP equipment we had to study. In our free time, we could go into the room and familiarise ourselves with it whenever we wanted. Sometimes physically doing things is better than just reading about it - especially when you're trying to learn how each piece of equipment works.

Revision
For me, I found that the best way for me to revise was to do practice exams or to get some of my group members to test my knowledge. Everyone learns differently, but find a style that works for you. I had just finished university so I wasn't too out of the 'revising for exams' mindset. There were others in my group though that hadn't done exams for quite a few years. But, we got there in the end! We all found what worked for us.

A friend of mine found it best to wake up an hour earlier in the morning and revise then, whilst others liked revising into the night. The most important thing is to make sure you revise though, as the exams really do test what you've studied.

You don't need to study whenever you have free time, you need to sleep, relax and eat too, but it is important that you just do it at some point.

Exams
Exams can be stressful. During cabin crew training you are expected to learn quite fast, and you are tested on your knowledge all the way through. But, as long as you do your homework, revise and listen in class, there's no reason why you shouldn't ace it all. I remember at the beginning of our exams our trainers would always say 'just make sure you read the blooming question and read the blooming answers.' As obvious as it sounds, sometimes a lot of the answers sound similar, or the question requires more than one answer. When you're in an exam it's easy to have the mindset 'I want this to be over as quickly as possible,' but in thinking this way, you're likely to skim read a question or not read all the answers.  I did that myself in the beginning. So just take your time. The exams have a timer on so you always know how much time you have left, and you are given plenty of time too.

It's important in the exam to not distract the other people on your course. Don't ask them questions etc. whilst you are meant to be taking your test. Not worth being disqualified for. You do know the answer, have faith in yourself.

The trainers for my group were so helpful, and if you were unsure what a question is asking you, they are more than happy to re-word the question for you. Obviously, don't ask them to re-word every one, but one per exam they're more than happy with.

One final thing I'd say about exams is just be mindful of your group. Not everyone will pass every exam first time, so be aware if a member of your group looks upset. Support them, maybe help them revise for their retake, and just let them know that it's normal to not ace everything the first time!

Practical assessments/Drills
Clothing is important in this. You need to be wearing clothes that will allow you to do your drills and CPR without issue. Wearing a watch is a must, but any other jewellery may have an impact. For example, my earrings got ripped out when I put on my PBE during my equipment exam, and my necklace got ripped off taking off my lifejacket in my drills.

Take your time to make sure you are doing everything you are meant to. Drill cards are also by your crew seat so they can be helpful too if you are allowed to look at those. Help your other crew members, you are a team - and this is the way it will be when you're online too. Lastly, I would say take it seriously. There's nothing worse than feeling like not everyone is taking it seriously and trying their best.

My friends and I would often practice our drills in our hotel in the evening - taking it in turns to do each role and each scenario. This might be a great way of helping you too.

Self Care 
When you're in the mode of study, learn, sleep, it can be easy to forget that you need some downtime too. Every night I spent just half an hour watching Netflix in the bath. No revising in there, just relaxing. It helped me de-stress from the day, ensuring I could get a good nights sleep ready for the next day.

Food
For me, this is quite an important topic, as a hungry mind is no use to anyone. To make sure you perform at your best, you need to make sure you're eating and drinking enough. It's easy to skip meals when you're nervous or stressed, but food or water will only help. I also made sure to bring snacks with me when I was training away from home. My training was split between two locations, which meant spending quite a few nights in a hotel. I made sure to take food and snacks with me just in case I didn't fancy going out to dinner one night.

Thank you for reading, I hope it helped! If you have any other questions then feel free to either comment below or message me on my Instagram @laurensflyinglife.
Bye for now,
Lauren 

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