Just heard this interesting peice of news. Norfolk Police have decided that for candidates who have passed the national police assessment system, they want them to do a presentation on how they will put into effect the force values and objectives. What  a complete load of rubbish. Lets just think about this for a minute. Lets ignore the fact that these candidates have just passed a national system, which, weak and flawed though it is, has been adopted by all English and Welsh forces, as well as BTP etc. This is the system which means in most forces, you will have been classed as having proved yourself as having the skills to be a police officer. But let us ignore it. Norfold clearly feel that this does not evidence clearly enough these skills, otherwise they would not feel the need to do something else QED. But why  a presentation? Why on that topic? This is the kind of presentation topic that would form part of an Inspectors board, not a poor bloody PC. How many average people give presentations? Especially if they are young, or from a disadvantaged background and are in the process of clawing themselves up? This presentation merely gives a big advantage to Specials and CSO’s (whihc may be no bad thing), while being exclusionary. Unless you hapen to be  asales rep, most people will not have  a clue how to start this. And before Norfolk police recruitment say this is the point, why don’t any other forces use presentations? Is it harder to police Norfolk than Merseyside or Manchester? Do Norfolk officers need to be better communicators than those working Brixton or Toxteth? No of course not. This is just someones bright idea to cut down numbers of successful aplicants, and has not been though through fully. I bet you this daft idea disappears within a year, and is never used again. Any takers?

I have had two people this week sending me their own analysis of how they think they have done after leaving the police assessment centre, and asking me basically for a bit of comfort. I never make a comment until they have actually got their marks, and the reason for this is shown in the below exchange. Have a read, and it may make you feel better when you walk out of your assessment. As it is an email exchange, the most recent email is at the top. Any typos were i the original exchange!

Hiya John,
You were right not to do an autopsy as I got my results and I passed!!!!
I only just scraped through with xx% (I think if I had not messed up I would have done a lot better), but who cares, a pass is a pass so I’m happy!!
I know for sure that if I had not attended Talking Blues I would definitely not have passed so thank you so much for everything.

Thanks again John

From: john.mctaggart@talkingblues.co.uk

I never hold autopsies until the body is dead!

Let me know what the results are and we can talk then,

John

To:john.mctaggart@talkingblues.co.uk
Subject: Day 1 today
Hiya John,
I hope you don’t mind me mailing you, I came to the Hatfield briefing on 1st of Feb and I had my day 1 toady. Unfortunately I am pretty sure that I have messed things right up and I wondered if you wouldn’t mind giving me your thoughts on whether you feel I could still pass as I have got a long three week wait for the results.

The morning session went really really well, I did the written reports really well, set out the issues and my proposals and recommendations. The numerical and logical reasoning tests also went really well and I was full of confidence going into the afternoon, sadly then everything went a bit wrong.

I completed three of the roleplays fine, but the one where I had to challenge the security guard for being over the top I feel I did not challenge her enough, She said that ………..and that threw me a bit as it did not say that in the prep, I said I thought she was being a bit harsh on the youths and that I felt it was inappropriate when she said something but that was it. I didn’t realize that I had used so much time questioning and the buzzer sounded before I came to any conclusion. Would I have failed that one??

Unfortunately the interview was even worse, I got so nervous I could hardly speak, In the question about XX I went off on a tangent and I don’t think that I really made much sense. Then I said ‘I’m not really answering the question you’ve asked’, which I probably should have kept to myself!! Also the time ended before I had finished 2 of the questions so I didn’t get the conclusion or what I had learnt in. I also kept going errr, will that go against me because we were being assessed on our oral communication?? My mouth has never been so dry and I had to keep drinking water, I must have looked so nervous and the assessment centre is all about staying cool ubder pressure so I thought that might go against me as well??

I just wondered if these muck-ups will be enough for me to fail, I don’t want to carry on running and doing fitness every day if I’m gonna find out in three weeks that I failed anyway.

I hope you don’t mind me mailing you, it’s just that I thought if anyone will know if that would cause me to fail it will be you.

I do want to say though that Talking Blies was brilliant preperation and I know I would have messed things up a lot more if it wasn’t for you guys so thank you for that.

Just a note to let people know our Swindon course is now full, sorry.