Aligning frameworks and experience to develop HE-ness: from training to student-centred learning

Many colleagues in HE will have been involved in developing programmes for public service professionals in health, social care and management. More recently a few will have become involved with proposals for significant change in the development of police officers able to work effectively with their local communities. The case study is a programme being designed by the Universities of Brighton, Sussex and Chichester, in partnership with Sussex Police, which will develop 300 new police officers each year through a Foundation Certificate. The team presenting the workshop include the academic developer from HE and some of the experienced police trainers who have led this culture change within policing. The workshop will focus on the issues that the team is facing in three significant areas: 1) how to develop 18 police trainers from their current FE/NVQ professional standards to become student- centred Associate Lecturers able to deliver an HE experience with appropriate professional standards; 2) how to accommodate the formal requirements of frameworks of academic and professional standards in a context of significant policy change; 3) how students and staff might manage the expectations that the programme will contribute to significant culture change. We might also explore whether the anticipated tensions between the formality of the standards in the relevant frameworks and the aspirations of reforming approaches to policing in communities might be partially addressed by development of a collaborative research programme.