Trainer Blog

Yesterday I delivered a shortened and slightly adapted version of my Women’s Safety workshop to about 40 girls from the 5^th form at a local college. It was great fun, and they were a fantastic audience.  I suspect that it helped that I had delivered the same workshop to the Upper 6^th the week before, and they had done all the pre event publicity for me.  The audience turned up with very positive attitudes, and judging by the reaction of both them and their staff they left with equally positive reactions.

On the way home in the car I got round to thinking about how I came to be in this position.  It seems like another life time ago that I first stood in front of a group of police officers from the Training Team at Surrey Police to teach my first lesson on what was called a Pre Student Instructors Course held at Police HQ.  The reason this course was held was that the force had sent a number of people away on an expensive course only to have them fail, and come back to force without gaining the all important qualification.

So up I got in front of all the folk I was hoping to work with, and who had trained me in the early part of my service, to deliver my first lesson.  I loved it, and I have gone on loving it ever since.  I was so fortunate that at the time I was learning to be a trainer whatever the Police Service taught you to do it taught you to do it to the very highest standard. 

Having succeeded in my ‘Pre’ course I went off to Harrogate in North Yorkshire for the 15 week course to gain that all important Police Duty Instructors Certificate, which would entitled me to train in Police Training Centres.  Our final assessment was carried out by the Principal of Birkbeck College, a teacher training college in London, and in his address to my class of 16 police officers from all over the country he said “At the end of 15 weeks you are all more classroom effective than our students are after two years.” Praise indeed, not just for us but also for our Director of Studies, a lovely man from Cleveland Constabulary called Derek Sharpe.  He was a true inspiration to me.  

I returned to my force with a certificate in my hand, and shortly afterwards I joined the team who had sat in on that first lesson I delivered.  How scary was that!

Both my grandparents on my mum’s side were teachers, and sadly passed away before I first taught my first lesson.  But it is a nice feeling to be carrying on doing something they obviously loved.     

So as you can see, I got a fantastic grounding, and I am sure that goes a long way towards getting the feeling I still when I have delivered a successful session to whoever my audience may be. There is nothing like leaving a venue with praise ringing in your ears, and that was what happened yesterday. After sessions I often turn back to make sure the client is not looking before I punch the sky with delight and quietly thank all those great folk who helped me make that start all those years ago.         

For more information about either our Women’s Safety Programme or our Train the Trainers 2 day course, visit the Executive Guidance web-site.  If you want to book a place on the course yourself or arrange for us to come out t o your workplace, please use  the Contact Us pages.