May 2007 Letters

Great news, I passed the initial application paper sift, however, to progress my application to the next stage they require an educational psychologist report referring to my disability of having dyslexia. Now that is a task, if you recall the number of times I have moved house, somehow now I had to locate the old document with details of my assessment from when I was in college. I checked in all my boxes and folders at home but as I had guessed it wasn’t there. Then I hunted through my Mum’s attic and all the boxes marked with my name with no success. At last I search though all boxes at my Dad’s house, and with success. I even found a report that was written during my cross channel swim, each member of the team received a copy but I had totally forgotten about it. I posted off a copy of the educational psychologists report and related documents to the Police recruitment team.

A couple of weeks later I get a letter telling me that as the report does not state that I have dyslexia and only says that I have ‘specific learning difficulties’ then I am not eligible for any special assessment procedures. I wrote back a very polite letter saying that, ‘I never wanted special treatment and I had stated this on my application, therefore, please proceeds my application to the next stage.’

Again there seemed like another very long wait, but finally I received a letter in early June. Well more like a very large pack. This included a letter inviting me to attend the Assessment Centre interview. Another inviting me to attend a pre-assessment centre briefing. Directions, the assessment centre packs and general information about the procedures from now on.

I was over the moon!! I called my Mum and then Dad and told them both the good news. I didn’t tell any of my friends still, there was still a good chance I wouldn’t pass the assessment centre stage. Again it was back to the library and this time I took home some many books on policing that I nearly fell off my bike riding with such a heavy bag on the handlebars, at this point I decided to walk instead!!