Gloucestershire Magistrates Find a Way to Practice Essential Bench Skills

Having volunteered to carry out such an important service for our communities, it is only to be expected that we want to be as competent as possible. We have the competence framework, mentoring, appraisal, post court review, training days, workbooks and magazine articles to assist us. However, any of us who have been involved in other skills-based activities - learned how to play an instrument, or belonged to a choir or drama group, or sports team, or tried watercolours or cake icing - will know that practice is essential if you want to improve those skills. We might listen to other performers, or watch professional productions, we might study methods of other sportsmen, or read books or watch training films; but it is not until we try out our new piano piece, or make our big speech, or take some penalty shots that we really find how well we are actually performing. It is also true that taking one penalty shot is not going to improve greatly our chances of scoring. The really good thing about practice is that you can have a go, get it wrong, have another go, and learn, from your first disastrous miss-kick, where you are going wrong – or even what you are doing that works. Think how many times a keen bowler will bowl at cricket nets.

In Gloucestershire we decided to offer some sessions for magistrates so that they could simply come along and practice. So much of what we do is skills-based, that not having the chance to practice seemed completely wrong. The sessions were run for an afternoon, once a month for the last year, and anyone could come along – a bit like cricket nets or choir practice – so long as they registered an interest by filling in a booking form. Every month we had magistrates at these sessions and they were a great success. There was one other element, though, which was an important part of the initiative: the sessions were run by approved magistrate trainers, that is, those people who practised the skills themselves and were able to offer support based on solid experience.

As this training had to be approved by our BTDC and MATC, the sessions were very carefully designed according to JSB Framework of Standards for Magistrates’ Training and Development. We looked at appraisal forms and post court review forms to find out what problems magistrates were having so that the newly-designed practice exercises addressed an identified need. (We decided to focus on structured sentencing and giving pronouncements). We set up a clear and simple method of enrolling. We tried to hold the sessions in a spare court room whenever we could to make it feel real. We had validation forms on the day and asked for feedback 3 months after the training, too. Before the sessions began, the 2 trainers ran through all the materials to make sure that they were fully prepared. Also, importantly, we kept the numbers small, only 6 per session, so that everyone had the chance to have lots of practice, it was not too scary to ask questions or make a mistake, and there was time for everyone to be listened to.

Our validation forms tell us that the magistrates who came along very much valued the time and attention given them: this was training which was addressing a need with support and, I think, good humour, in a safe environment – always the best place for learning to take place. Feedback after sitting for 3 months shows us that those who came feel very much more confident in what they are doing now.

We believe that this year of practice sessions has offered Gloucestershire magistrates another route to sustaining their on-going learning and development and the chance to take responsibility for their own competence as expected by MNTI2. It has also been a lot of fun and given us time to swap tips and ideas and problems so that next time we sit we might be just that little bit more efficient. Perhaps we are still not perfect - but this was an initiative that worked and many of our colleagues found it a support.

It seems to me that there should be smaller group work and practice opportunities for all magistrates. I do not think there is a single amateur dramatist out there who would dream of saying his or her lines without practice and yet we feel we ought to be able to make quite complex pronouncements in court on the hoof. It could be different once it is recognised that practice could help and that the space for practice and reflection is not a large enough part of our training.

Liz Teague