So, what can you expect when you come on an Talking Blues course? Our course lasts from 9.15 in the morning to 7pm in the evening. It is a long day - but think of it as your first police shift - and here is what you will get out of it.

This is a hugely important section of the process. It is designed to test your ability to take responsibility, ask relevant questions and make decisions in a fair and impartial manner. Because of the number of role-plays this section represents a large chunk of the available marks on the day. It is also one of the most common areas that people fail on.

We spend a full half day firstly showing you how to utilise your five-minute preparation time effectively. By the end of the session, you will understand how to plan your meeting with the role actor in a concise manner, setting yourself up to score the maximum number of marks. Consequently, when doing the real thing, as your competition enter their scenarios floundering, you will have a prepared plan, split into the sections you need to address with the role actor, highlighting what issues and questions you need to raise and outlining what actions you may need to take.

The second part of the session covers the principles of dealing with the actual role-play itself. You will discover how to take control of the scenario, ask appropriate questions, offer solutions and make a suitable decision. Most importantly of all, you will understand how to evidence all of this to the assessor. You will also learn to avoid coming across as weak, indecisive, or lacking in basic policing skills.

Perhaps the most valuable part of the day is that every student prepares and acts as the candidate in two role-plays. You will also leave with a total of 14 role-plays with full marking guides and role actor instructions, for you to practice at home. It is worth noting that many people say they are most afraid of these when they attend the course. Have a look at the FAQ regarding “making a fool of yourself”.

The written proposal exercise is a problem solving exercise, which is designed to test many skills, of which spelling and grammar form only a small part. You will learn the basic principles involved in taking responsibility and portraying a fair overview of a given situation, you will also learn how to be creative in terms of offering a solution and how to take responsibility for solving a potentially difficult issue.

We will also help you to understand how to combine a number of sources of information into a logical, balanced summary for a reader with no knowledge of the subject you are writing about. By the end of it, you will have a model to use for any report you may be asked to write. This module explains what the assessors are looking for in the written exercises, techniques that you need to employ and examines the kinds of exercises you will encounter. You will also find in your course manual two examples of report writing exercises for you to practice.

On your assessment day you will be given four questions and allowed five minutes to speak on them. In this section we will explain a technique to utilise your five minutes to the full. We will provide you with a logical way to give an evidenced answer, utilising good examples, showing the skills required. In this way, you will avoid becoming tongue tied or running out of things to say. We will examine what is effectively the marking guide and show you how to shape your answers in advance to meet the required competency areas. We will also discuss examples of students' interview questions and answers, together with feedback. This session lasts approximately three hours. It also includes an input on diversity, ethics and integrity, which underpin the entire process. By the end of this, you will have a thorough understanding of the kinds of questions likely to come up, know how to be able to prepare a five-minute answer and be aware of how to tailor it to make sure you gain maximum marks.

Good as we are, we obviously cannot improve your IQ in one day. In fact, anyone who says they can is making false promises. In any event, we would struggle to fit it into our ten hour day! So whilst we do not provide tuition on the verbal and numerical reasoning tests, we do provide brief advice on how to practice and provide a few other handy hints. If you believe this may be an issue for you, then we recommend you buy a copy of “The Police Initial Recruitment Test : Mock Test with Preparation by Christopher John Tyreman, easily found on Amazon. This book has numerous practical tests in similar to the real ones. We have too much important stuff to tell you to waste your time with something you can practice at home with a book!