Let’s talk about the student voice

 This blog welcomes the thoughts and experiences from current Student Representative, Luke Walters, who is completing his final year on the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship whilst volunteering time to feedback on the programme and create change for the current and future students.

A bit about Luke

Undertaking a degree 10 years after finishing education, the highest achievement being a level 3 in professional cookery and 9 years being a chef, I had my reservations about the PCDA programme. However, with support coming from both UWE and my constabulary, achieving a degree has never been closer. With 5 months left of a three-year programme, I am currently writing my final written assessment.

Luke’s experience of the programme

With a full-time job as a response police officer, getting married, moving house, going through a Tourette’s syndrome diagnosis and achieving marks at degree level I never thought I could shows that the workload is tough, but a manageable, amount. The degree programme is set up as a blended approach, meaning teaching days are a mix of on-campus sessions and online learning. This is extremely beneficial as when you are working from home you can work at your own pace (and it cuts the travel time). On the other hand, working on-campus gives you benefits such as practical scenarios, in class support and socialising with other police officers from different areas of your constabulary.

UWE has been extremely supportive regarding my disability. They provide a range of reasonable adjustments that can best assist the learner – both in class and with assessments – whether it’s for dyslexia, ADHD, Tourette’s Syndrome or even others.

Undertaking the PCDA programme has made me a better writer, more reflective, a critical thinker on the job. I am a better police officer than I was 2 years ago without the input from lecturers who have their own experiences in our role.

His role as a rep

Whilst undertaking the PCDA programme and working with my constabulary, I was also elected student rep for my cohort. Being an active and approachable student rep has developed skills I may not have had a chance to being sat in a classroom, for example leadership, organisation and communication. These skills have been developed over the last three years by being someone other students come to with praise, or constructive feedback, or even criticism. It has been my duty to report between the students and the teaching team at UWE, the skills that have developed as a result will hold me in great stead for my next goal after the PCDA – becoming a Sergeant on a response team.

Sarah Williams, a senior lecturer and programme lead on the PCDA, also shares the importance of listening to the student voice and her experience of Student Representative Staff Forums. This blog hopes to shine a light on those students and staff that are committed to making a difference here at UWE and encourage others to get involved…

Sarah’s role – listening to the student voice

As the year one programme lead on the Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship, my role has many responsibilities, but few more important than listening. Listening is a much under-rated skill. Much attention is paid – and rightly so – to why policing must listen to the public. However, in this blog I want to talk about the importance of listening to the student voice.

When top brands release new products to the market, it is usually preceded by months (if not years) of design followed by extensive product testing. This is such a well-known strategy it hardly seems noteworthy, but it can be helpful to consider student representation in the same way. In this example, the ‘product’ is the PCDA, the ‘consumer’ is the student officer, and we replace the term ‘product testing’ with the term ‘student voice’.

If we really want policing education to work, we must listen to those who have experienced it. What brought a subject to life so well that it was instantly recalled by the officer when dealing with an incident in real life? What fell so flat that the same officer forgot they’d even had an input on it? This is incredibly valuable information we can use to make things better for future student officers.

Student Rep Staff Forums

There are several ways in which student officers on the PCDA can make their voices heard, but one of the main ones is through Student Rep Staff Forums (SRSFs). These take place every three months and are an opportunity for student officers, via their chosen student reps, to give us their perspective – positive or negative. The feedback received at SRSF is fed into the PCDA Programme Management Committee or PMC (universities love an acronym just as much as the police), where the programme leadership discuss how they will take student feedback forward. Being a student rep is not particularly demanding. The main expectation is to attend SRSFs and provide feedback and disseminate the response to the colleagues on their cohorts. However, its importance cannot be overstated.

The PCDA programme at UWE has evolved significantly since its inception. Gone are the Covid days of online lectures. Today, we prioritise learning on campus because of the greater interactivity it allows. Power-point dominated lectures have been replaced with more interactive, discussion-based sessions and a significant increase in practical, scenario-based learning. This is all in response to student feedback as well as the adoption of evidence-based principles about what works best to help students learn. Student feedback makes a difference!

Could you join us?

The PCDA is fortunate to have a small number of dedicated reps who have already been invaluable in helping the PCDA improve (Ross Windsor and Luke Walters can be singled out specifically). But we need to hear from more student officers. The student voice is at its loudest and most influential as a choir, not a solo act, and on average there are 10-12 cohorts enrolled on the PCDA at any given time. That’s a lot of student officers who can provide their perspective and influence the programme’s development. We want to hear from them.

Being a student rep is also an excellent opportunity to develop leadership skills. Representation is a two-way process. It is a genuine opportunity to influence the programme’s development and the student office’s engagement in it. Student police officers are not a list of collar numbers meeting recruitment targets, expected to absorb unthinkingly what they are told in training. They are the next generation of police officers, possessing critical thinking skills, the knowledge to achieve evidence-based change, and the potential to change public perception for the better. Their voices need to be listened to in our ambition to achieve outstanding policing for everyone. In the words of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai, “the little grassroots people can change this world”.

Further resources

You can learn more about becoming a student representative here:

Freshers’ Fair 2023 (thestudentsunion.co.uk)

Student Reps Handbook by The Students’ Union at UWE – Issuu

We would encourage readers to share your thoughts on the UWE blog series and if you are interested in writing a blog, please contact the Policing Editorial Team.

Editorial Team

Paul Williamson (Joint Programme Leader & Senior Lecturer); Claudia McCready (Lecturer); Eve Middleton (Tripartite Assessor – Policing); Eve Smietanko (Senior Lecturer); Ian Lowe (Senior Lecturer) & Micah Hassell (Senior Lecturer).

If you would like to contribute as a guest blogger, please contact paul.williamson@uwe.ac.uk