1. In Defence of Knowledge and Judgement: The Role of the Shift in Managing the Horizontal and Vertical Learning of New Police Recruits. Dr Sarah Charman @sarahc2612

2. Plan …… Formal and Informal learning Assumptions about Police Learning
Learning at Work
The Research Evidence
Using and Valuing Knowledge and Experience

3. Formal Learning Informal Learning
Information and knowledge about processes and procedures
Informal Learning
‘Language’ of the organisation and normative processes

4. ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT POLICE LEARNING I
Formal Learning
The Police Training Environment
Informal Learning
“On the Streets’

5. ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT POLICE LEARNING II
Identity adaptation
Directional change
Training Schools
Working Police Environment
Role of tutors
Location of first posting

6. Theories of Learning have tended to ignore:
Context within which learning takes place
Context within which practice takes place
The nature of human interaction
Learning as a social process

7. Andragogy Adults use experience as a source of learning:
They learn more effectively when they understand real-life connections with the learning;
They are self-directed;
They prefer to be able to understand the justification for the content of their learning.
Teaching should be less directive, more facilitative and should utilise shared experiences and knowledge

9. Aims
To assess the presenting and changing attitudes, values and beliefs of the new recruits to the police service in the early stages of their police career
To evaluate the key influences upon the formation and development of the attitudes, values and beliefs of new police recruits

10. Methods Within five weeks of joining Six months after joining
Four year longitudinal research study utilising semi-structured interviews (with quantitative elements) with two cohorts of new police recruits (plus tutors and development officers) to ‘Evermord Constabulary’ in England.
Within five weeks of joining
Six months after joining
One year after joining
Four years after joining

11. QUALITATIVE QUESTIONS QUANTITATIVE QUESTIONS
The role of the police
How to learn to be a police officer
The influences of others in learning to be a police officer
The expectations and realities of being a police officer
What makes a ‘good’ police officer
The major challenges facing policing
QUANTITATIVE QUESTIONS
Most important priorities of a police officer
Most important characteristics of a police officer
Most important influences upon a police officer
22 statements about policing with which to agree or disagree on a 5 point Likert-type scale

13. How Officers Learn

14. THE SQUARE OF POLICE LEARNING
‘FORMAL’ LEARNING
‘INFORMAL’ LEARNING
VERTICAL LEARNING
Classroom based learning focusing upon the acquisition of skills and knowledge, passed on from ‘expert’ to ‘novice’. This is exemplified by police trainers and by the new pre-join qualifications.
Non-prescriptive direction and advice during early placements within police stations, most notably from the Sergeant in charge of the shift.
HORIZONTAL LEARNING
‘On the job’ learning through a process of tutelage or ‘shadowing’. New recruits spend approximately 10 weeks under the supervision of another constable on shift – the ‘tutor period’. Completion of Police Action Checklist.
Non-prescriptive direction and advice during early placements within police stations. This comes from other constables who are colleagues of the same rank as the new recruits although with more experience.

15. Force recommendations
Tutor payments, tutor units embedded within NPT, three tutor hub locations, tutors spend almost 100% of their time tutoring, all new recruits spend two years in NPT with managed attachments with R&P, Investigations etc
Force recommendations

16. Professionalising the Tutor Constable Role
Understanding the value of experience (Bayley and Bittner, 1984):
Teaches officers about goals
Teaches officers about tactics and tactical decision making
Teaches officers about presence
Appreciating the value of experience:
Reward
Recognition
Training
Time
“Officers must be helped to learn from one another less haphazardly then they do in the front seats of patrol cars” (Bayley and Bittner, 1984:55).

17. “Policing at its best is based on knowledge allied to professional judgement, not on hierarchy wedded to procedure and process. The demands of the future require more emphasis than ever to be placed on what police officers and staff know, not what rank they hold. In that context, leadership occurs and must be developed at all levels in policing, in different ways. All officers and staff should be reviewing the evidence of what works in policing and have a high degree of professional discretion”.
College of Policing (2015) Leadership Review