In a new feature, two of our new recruits will be publishing a weekly blog about their experiences in police training school.  Follow their progress and find out what it’s like to join Cambridgeshire Constabulary in 2015…

A police officer never knows what their day will throw at them… even at training school

Monday was a big day – our mid-term assessment role plays! This is where we had to bring everything that we learnt over the last six weeks together, and tackle whatever situation was in front of us. Doug and I were in separate couples, so we each had two different role plays to deal with. I had a domestic situation with a violent male, and then I had to stop and search two teenagers for a blade and cannabis. Both went well and Doug and I passed!

On Tuesday we learnt about Handling Stolen Goods in the morning. In the afternoon we had an input from a guest speaker about the National Crime Recording Standards – this is all about deciding whether an incident should be recorded as a crime or not. We did a couple of questions about whether each scenario was a crime – this caused quite a lot of discussion in the group! Halfway through the lesson we had a bit of drama concerning a truck getting stuck in the mud outside our classroom – all the boys ran outside to help push the truck. That was our bit of excitement for the day!

Wednesday was another big day – we had an hour and a half exam on our learning so far. This took up the majority of the morning, with giving personal feedback and other admin. We spent the afternoon doing course feedback with our Learning and Development Sergeant.

After all of the worrying and excitement of the first half of the week we were all glad to have a calmer end to the week! For the rest of the week we were all together being delivered presentations. Thursday started off with a talk about methods of identifying people, including the use of social media. The afternoon was finished off by our force firearms licensing officer delivering a very interesting presentation on firearms legislation.

Friday began with the youth offending team officer coming in to explain the importance of their team, and how they interact and get involved with youths who have got in trouble with the police and how police cautions can seriously affect the future of a young person. We also had a PC from the Missing Persons Unit explain what our actions should be on attending a report of a missing person, and the computer program we have to complete upon arrival.

For the next month our groups split! Jess’s group have their witness interview training, whilst Doug’s group have their officer safety training. Looking forward to it!