Reflective Practice for Policing Students

Selina Copley

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781844458486
• eBook ISBN: 9781844458493
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Reflective practice is a key element of both police training and police practice in the 21st century. This text provides an essential guide to reflective practice for all those studying for degrees and foundation degrees in policing. Taking an accessible and practical approach, the book considers four broad areas. It looks at what reflective practice is, including practical models of reflection, and discusses why it is important. It examines reflective practice within the specific context of policing through a range of case studies and examples, and considers the vital role of reflective practice as part of continuing professional development.

1 The police student: an adult learner

CHAPTER OBJECTIVES

By the end of this chapter you will have:

• gained an understanding of the development of higher educational programmes for police students;
• gained an understanding of the role reflection plays in adult learning;
• assessed your own knowledge about reflective learning.

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LINKS TO STANDARDS

This chapter provides opportunities for links with the following Skills for Justice, National Occupational Standards (NOS) for Policing and Law Enforcement 2008.

AE1	Maintain and develop your own knowledge, skills and competence.

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Introduction

This chapter introduces you to the importance of reflection as an adult learner. It sets the scene by explaining the importance of adult education for policing students and some of the background to the range of educational programmes that police students receive. The chapter then describes the key differences between adult education and the type of learning that you may have experienced at school. Finally, it explains the crucial role that reflection will play for you as an adult learner during your studies and why it is important.

It is useful to think about what you already know about being an adult learner. We will start with a knowledge check – a series of questions to help you assess what knowledge you already have. At the end of this chapter you are asked to complete this exercise again in order to assess what you have learned.

PRACTICAL TASK

Knowledge check

• What do you think the benefits of adult learning might be for police students?
• What do you know about being an adult learner?
• Why is reflection important for adult learning?

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First, we consider the key developments in educational policy during recent years.

Developments in educational policy

In 1997 the Labour party came back into power after 18 years of Conservative administration. A key aim of the new government was to modernise the public sector, including departments such as social services, health and education. You may remember the slogan ‘Education, Education, Education’ that was made famous by the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and that emphasised the government’s commitment to improving educational standards in Britain. While there is no doubt that primary and secondary schools received a significant amount of attention, the reforms were intended to improve the life chances of citizens at all stages of their lives and therefore included adult learning and education. We summarise the key themes of some of the policies that were introduced in order to achieve this, concentrating on three particular documents that have had a major influence upon the way that adult education has developed.

• The learning age: a renaissance for a new Britain (1998).
• Skills for life (2001).
• Twenty-first century skills (2003).

The learning age: a renaissance for a new Britain (1998)

Summary of key points

The main aim of the Green Paper or consultation document The learning age: a renaissance for a new Britain (Department for Education and Skills, 1998) was to improve the general standards of adult education in Britain. The key areas of recommendation were as follows.

• A better skilled workforce.
• Wider access to adult education for disadvantaged groups.
• A society that enjoys learning.

This meant that adult education was to be more widely available within colleges, universities and the workplace. In particular, it would aim to target groups of adults who might not previously have had the opportunity to achieve an educational qualification. Public sector workers, including police officers, were to be included in this group. It was intended that this would improve an individual’s career opportunities, and provide the workforce with the correct skills so that they could perform their role to the highest possible standard. There was also to be a commitment to what was referred to as ‘lifelong learning’. This term refers to the opportunity to continue learning at various times throughout life, or during your career.

Skills for life (2001)

Summary of key points

The Skills for life strategy, launched in 2001, identified that large numbers of adults in Britain, including public sector staff, did not have adequate basic skills in English and mathematics (Department for Education and Skills, 2002). The need for this to be addressed was outlined, and recommendations included a range of courses offering adults the opportunity to improve these skills. It also strengthened the argument for university standard education, because one of the key elements of this is the development of good written and verbal communication skills.

Twenty-first century skills (2003)

Summary of key points

Practical plans to improve standards of education in Britain were published in 2003 within the White Paper Twenty-first century skills (Department for Education and Skills, 2003). Its key aim was to ensure that the workforce had the correct skills for employment. The document outlined the development of a network of Sector Skills Councils. Each of these agencies would help to identify the key skills that each type of employee was required to have in order to be competent in their role. The minimum standard of competence would apply to every member of staff in that role across the country. These minimum requirements were referred to as National Occupational Standards (NOS).

The learning requirements for police students would therefore be agreed in partnership with a new agency called Skills for Justice.

PRACTICAL TASK

Visit the Skills for Justice website at www.skillsforjustice.com. Explore the areas that Skills for Justice covers. Then click the tab at the top of the Skills for Justice home page called National Occupational Standards. In this section, explore the area entitled ‘What are NOS and how do they work?’

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Developments in police training

The fight against crime

As well as wanting to develop or modernise the standards of adult education in Britain when they returned to power in 1997, the Labour government was committed to improving the whole of the criminal justice system, including the police force, and to reducing crime. You may remember another phrase made famous by the Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair: ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.’ What he meant by this was that social factors such as poverty and poor education – which might contribute to an individual being more likely to commit an offence – should also be addressed. For those who continued to break the law, however, the punishment should be harsh enough for justice to be done. There was therefore increasing pressure placed upon the police force to fight crime and create safer communities.

For any service to perform effectively it is essential that the correct training is provided – it ensures that personnel have the correct skills to perform their role. The demand for a more effective police force, as well as the specific developments that were taking place in adult education, led the government to look closely at whether all areas of police training – but in particular the initial training period – were still appropriate for a modern police service. We now consider the key events and documents that have led to the current range of police courses and the reasons that higher educational programmes have become popular.

Managing learning (1999)

In 1999 Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) undertook an inspection of the way that police training is organised. The HMIC is a body that reports to the government, and its role is to inspect particular areas of policing in order to ensure that the highest standards of practice are delivered, and that police performance is continually improving. If we consider the importance of training in general, together with the rapid changes that were taking place both within the criminal justice system and within the education system more broadly, it is easy to see why this review was considered to be a matter of some urgency.

The inspection did not concentrate solely on the training provided for new police recruits; it looked at all areas of police training. This included specialist areas such as fire arms training and promotion schemes such as the Core Leadership Development Programme, for example. The key aim was to assess the standard of all areas of police training in each of the 43 police forces around the country.

Varied practice

The results of this inspection showed that training was a key priority for most police forces but that the standard varied enormously from region to region. This was because there was not a national training strategy that all forces were required to comply with. Personnel who were in the greatest need of training did not always receive it, and others received more than necessary. This meant that staff did not always have the skills they needed to perform their job properly, and often money was wasted.

The need for change

The inspection was critical of police training as a whole and made a series of recommendations for the ways that it could be improved. A summary of the key themes follows.

• A culture of lifelong learning There should be an approach to training that emphasises learning as an ongoing process. Staff should therefore have opportunities to continually develop and learn throughout their careers.
• Training that is outward facing Staff should be less isolated from the public and other professions. Rather than providing training in police classrooms, there should be an emphasis on engaging police staff with the communities that they will be working with. Educational programmes should therefore be delivered in colleges or universities, for example.
• National standards in training for all roles and ranks All roles within policing should have criteria for the level and type of knowledge that people in those roles are required to achieve, and these criteria should be the same in all police forces throughout the country.
• Professionalisation of the workforce Recognised qualifications should be provided rather than ‘in-house’ training, enabling individual staff and the service as a whole to become more professional.

If you think back to the strategies for education that we considered earlier in the chapter, you may recognise that some of the language used there is being repeated here. The police service wanted to ensure that their approach to training did not fall behind the wider changes that were taking place within education, and it therefore followed similar themes.

Training matters (2002)

Although an inspection had taken place that reviewed all types of police training, this was the first ever inspection that looked specifically at the initial training period. Police personnel undergo training courses on specific knowledge and skills throughout their careers. A police officer who decides to become a dog handler, for example, will undergo a specialised training programme to ensure that they have the correct skills for that role. The training programme that student officers receive is particularly important because it provides the foundation that is needed to be competent as a police officer. What follows is a description of the training programme for new police recruits as it existed at the time of the first inspection and the reasons that it has been replaced by more modern forms of education, including degree programmes and pre-joining courses.

The Probationer Constable Training Programme

The Probationer Constable Training Programme (PTP) was developed after the Second World War. Many of the officers who were recruited at this time were armed service personnel who had been discharged from active military service. In a similar way, the accommodation that was used for the training of new officers was often disused military accommodation. It is therefore easy to see why the PTP was delivered not only in a somewhat military style but also in isolation from the general public. There was also a strong emphasis upon police powers and the learning of law knowledge, and less emphasis upon professional attitudes and behaviour (Managing learning [Home Office, 1999]).

The PTP was an ‘in-house’ training scheme, which meant that the skills and knowledge provided to new recruits were delivered locally by police trainers. While there is no doubt that some trainers trained staff to an excellent standard, their own skills and the content of the training varied enormously. The training provided by a particular police force was not required to be of the same standard or include the same elements as that provided by a police force in anoth...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1. The police student: an adult learner
• 2. What is reflective practice?
• 3. The importance of values and beliefs
• 4. Models of reflection: a practical guide
• 5. The first steps: relating theory to practice
• 6. Strategies for enhancing reflection
• 7. Reflecting for life: planning a successful career
• Index