POELT: New Info

[Grochem]

King, get writing. I'm still at the 'expression of interest' phase, there has to be some 'Newbie' gems you can share?

[Deleted User 12949]

What's happening with osg courses I'm due to start in Oct
Regards
Nick

[kingofthekippax]

@Bearguy I'll have a go over the weekend.

[Vinceybaby]

Try and give you a bit of info folks about what’s going on from the inside.

So I started in March, did OSG duties and shadowing till July was such a long wait for my POELT course to come up,checking emails everyday, itching to go. Just coming towards the end of my course now right in the middle of CnR training in fact which is a lot of fun. Pretty intensive course all in all. It’s been condensed to 8 weeks (6 weeks classroom 2 weeks CnR) and the amount of people has been cut to 8 in some instances but ours was risk assessed for 12. As you can imagine there’s only a set amount of tutors and a back log of poelts to train with classroom sizes between 20-30 pre-covid. At our establishment we have around 30 poelts waiting to get on courses. The next lot getting on their course at the end of this month and the next lot in October. Some haven’t even got dates yet. So you can understand the nightmare this Covid situation has caused. Just going to have to be patient people waiting for their start dates. I can level with the wait I originally applied back last September and I’m only just about to be a qualified officer (fingers crossed I don’t get backsquadded for not passing CnR).

Hope this sheds some light.

[Deleted User 12971]

So Vincey, have they been doing POELT through covid then? It would be nice if they could just issue people with start dates even if its 6 months away from now. It's just nice to know.

[Craig79]

Vinceybaby ......

Really appreciate that update pal , this forum has been a godsend for updates regarding all this situation with waiting for calls etc , its a bloody nightmare waiting all the time , but expected . Thanks again , and hope the rest of your course goes well mate

[Vinceybaby]

All training was postponed until late June. Absolutely everything was put on hold so even existing officers haven’t been able to progress their careers on whichever training they required, it’s been a real bummer. My advice would just to keep ringing Priority Recruitment, I pestered them everyday till I got a start date. In an ideal world yes a start date even if it was in six months would be great, you could then start to plan your life and I know this feeling all too well however, it’s just not the case be patient it will come.

[londonlad81]

Still in vetting I am!

[londonlad81]

6 Poelt’s on a training course is madness, surely doing Covid tests would help get people get into training?
I did mine back in 2010, we had 18 on our course.
More should be done to get people through the door.

[londonlad81]

Wouldn’t think OSG courses would be that affected, it’s not an intense at Prison Officer training, no C&R. I’d imagine some of it can be done in house too.

[JCOX4]

Great to hear from you Vincey! So happy to hear things are going well for you mate. Shame about the huge backlog but really appreciate the update.
J

[Deleted User 12971]

Patience is a virtue when you want a job in the prison service Vincey, I think I'll keep ringing weekly to see if they can offer me a start date

[Deleted User 12971]

Well today I had "the call" to be given a start date for 5th October. Only for her to then say she has mixed my details up and I'll be called back after 4. Here I am 20 to 7 still no call

[Clc83]

That’s good, that you potentially have a start date. I passed my vetting in June and still waiting. What area are you ?

[Deleted User 12971]

I'm in the northeast