When finishing a course, it is imperative that you finish on a positive note. Not only will this instil greater confidence in your learners but will give you a boost with regard to being able to see the effectiveness of your training.

You want your learners to leave feeling energised, positive and full of ideas of how they are going to implement everything they have learned.

You can learn more about ending on a high note on ourTrain the Trainer Course.

This means you need to leave enough time at the end of the course to really pull everything together and commit everyone to saying what they are going to do next!

How to End on a High

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  Put a big sheet of paper in the middle of the room and give out marker pens – ask everyone to draw on the sheet and answer the question ‘how do you feel about training now?”.Discuss and extrapolate from the drawings the true feelings of the learners. Expect to receive some interesting and funny ones!
• Ask people to reflect quietly on their own and write down what their next steps will be to implement what they have learned, what resources they'll need and what will most help them.
• Ideally, you would have written up learners’ individual objectives at the beginning of the course referring back to them throughout. This will make the course relevant to individuals: eg “so, Anne, you said you want to know how to best train large groups.....”. The learners will have a common set of goals but it's their individual and unique goals that are most important to focus on developing.
• In the end, you can refer each learner back to their objectives and ask each of them in turn:

How have you met your objectives? Ask for specific examples, it's not enough for them to say ‘yes, I’ve met them’!

What more could you have done? Ask for feedback on both their input and yours - it will be a great opportunity for you to pick up mistakes that can be corrected next time which allows any errors to be viewed in a positive light.

When did you exceed your expectations? An especially nice question for the end of a session because people always enjoy seeing how they have surpassed even their own standards and it will give them a great confidence boost.

Finish off the course by going round each learner and asking them what they gained most from taking the course.Make sure everyone gives an answer as this is a great way for them to reflect upon what they've learnt.

Finish with a round of applause for everyone involved and the feel-good feeling will last long after the end of the course!

Don't forget, it's not just about ending on a high butstarting on highand maintaining that level throughout too.