End of an era?

Well, that's that then. Compulsaries are now over-I have a shade over two weeks and then I have 5 exams in 5 days to show that I used the first half of the course constructively.

In truth, the last week was a bit anticlimatic-there was one little bit of fun though. Each of the tutors, at the end of their course has to distribute assessment forms to the students so that we can grade;

• Ourselves on how we feel we handled the course,
• The tutor (under various criteria) as to how they taught the course

and 3 whole lines to write comments on how to improve the 'experience'.

Going by my past record, this is rather like giving an arsonist a box of matches and the keys to the paraffin shed...

Property came and went-the last session was about the 1954 Landlord and Tenant Act and how a business tenant can effectively get a perpetual lease by slipshod drafting (that reminds me, I erased my drafting exercise by accident today-oops).
Now I know that I studied this (badly) for my undergraduacy-I just wish that I had paid more attention then. Most of the law that I studied (and occasionally learnt) has been of little use here-it would have been nice if the OU had flagged up the bits that would occur in the CofL LPC. (come on boys, work with me here-you're effectively on the same team!)

During the class, a flyer was circulated from a different tutor about a free representation unit that would supply training if you were willing to act as an advocate for someone with benefits or employment problems. I stared at this for a few seconds before deciding that it would probably be a good thing for me to get involved because;

1. it would be a positive CV thing what with me not having a training contract (and don't ask about the CPS-it seems like they've fallen off the planet. They're not even replying to my emails now...)
2. It does happen to cover 2 out of my three chosen electives
   

The only drag? The tutor doing the circulating is not one of my faves (a lovely bloke-although I feel his wife should cut down on his e-numbers) and he will be taking the course himself to 'keep his hand in' should he do any private practice again.

One to ponder on, I feel

Anyhow, back to the class-I have really enjoyed property (way more than I ever expected to, what with my loathing of land law). The tutor kept it friendly and easy going all year and I don't think that I got stressed out over a single workshop.

But even then, I awarded only (out of 5) two 4s and three 3s. I did take time to write how good the course had been and credited the tutor but I don't throw high marks away willy-nilly you know!

The last insolvency came and went. This course has also been a little gem. I think that every person (and definitely every woman) was charmed by our tutor, in that kindly 'twinkley eyed' favourite-uncle way of his. He took time to explain all the difficult portions carefully and made sure that we compiled checklists of all the areas that are likely to crop up in an exam. (Of course, if entirely different subjects arise then we will probably curse him forever...)

The marks from the blogger panel were one 5, three 4s and a 3. (yes, I know that's a bit tight considering I like the lessons but bear with me)

My working Wednesday came and went, for some reason I decided not to do my consolidation from the first two days (and save it all for the weekend) and concentrate on criminal litigation. Well, alright-if you must know I actually had a very light day because I wanted to play with my toys before I went into the 'tank'. Alright? Happy now?

**cough** sorry about that-I get a bit (more) defensive close to revision period...

I wanted to get the prep right for Thursday class for two reason
The first half of the lesson would be spent discussing mitigation-that is when your client is found to be guilty and you are trying to sweet-talk the judge into granting a lesser sentence in light of;

• your client's good character, OR
• the low value of the goods taken. OR
• the fact that the razor wasn't really, really sharp etc.
  

OR if you can get away with it, all three

I had spent a good while preparing a 'your worships, the man before you etc' What happens? The tutor takes us step-by-step throughout the whole thing. I might as well not wasted my time yesterday and spent longer playing with my toys since I ended up screwing my work up and throwing it in the bin.
Not because it was incorrect, no sir. Simply because it was not what we are expected to do in an exam situation. Whereas I was brown nosing to the best of my ability (and I am very able in the cheek kissing department) what was wanted was a........
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Yep, you guessed it-a checklist. The CofL seems to have a lot in common with Sesame Street-there is, if not a 'word of the day'-there is certainly a 'word of the month'.

So far, we've had 'conduct', 'insurance', 'indemnity' and now 'checklist'. I have a suspicion that if you sat any one of the compulsory exams and just wrote those 4 words for every answer you would get pretty close to a pass mark...

So we (like good little lambs) wrote out our checklists ready to reproduce them in the exam (the chance of some form of mitigation is pretty high). Rest assured world, hundreds of dangerous psychos will be doing community service near you soon, released on the public by the class of 2007 slavishly following their checklists. But don't fret, you can always spot the psychos, they're the ones who volunteer for the pruning duty and bladed tools...

I think I'm digressing again. Sorry.

The second half of the workshop was a mock trial. Long term readers will remember how much I loved the civil lit one (and especially my awesome cross examination-advocacy was so easy then with a script in front of me). This time I was part of the prosecution side although I decided to be a witness this time and be the lovable, genial copper.

For my prep I copied out the facts into a notebook I bought for the purposes and 'amended' the language somewhat to make it more 'copperish'. (you know the sort of thing, 'walking' becomes ''proceeding') I also desperately wanted to find a policemans helmet in a fancy dress shop that is on the way to school. Well, I found one-a bloody WPC's hat! Bugger! I was tempted to buy it and camp it up-but thought 'no, I'm a grown up now, an elder statesman-I must show dignity and gravitas at all times' (yeah, right)

So, imagine my dismay when the suspect, a Mr Smith is being played by a woman! Oh, that's ruined my role-playing experience for sure. (although I did get a twinge when this young lady referred to being happily married to their beautiful wife).

I'm not saying what twinged, mind.

The trial itself was very one-sided. My character despite being lovable and genial, was also a dubious copper of the old school and didn't do things by the book-so my evidence would get tossed out faster than one of Brittany's husbands. The guy playing the other witness did his best to even up the account by 'over-egging' his part so much as to make the defendant look guilty of not only the crime charged but also the assassination of JFK and the theft of the Elgin Marbles.

At the end the tutor asked us of what we thought the verdict would be. Everyone was agreed that the defendant was 'not guilty' (in truth the CPS should never have let it come to trial-the case was far too weak) but only I noticed that no one in the defence 'team' had been allocated to do the 'plea in mitigation' if one was needed-which was a sure sign that the defence couldn't lose...

Oh, BTW-Thursday came and went.

And now, I'm sure that you're dying to know the marks for criminal litigation. The reason that I took a year off and came here-all that stuff.

Not so great, I'm afraid. The tutor herself did her best but it was a difficult job. The reading alone for the 5 workshops came to just under 500 A4 pages. During the workshops we covered maybe 50 or so of those. The other 450 could come up as an exam question-we are none the wiser. She scored mostly 3s with a 4. I did write a bitter little piece complaining of the sheer amount of prep and how the pacing of the course seemed all wrong. Pity, but hopefully the advanced crim course will be better (although we only have about 250 pages of the same book left to read..)

Running hot on the heels of the workshop came the last of our large consolidation sessions-also for criminal. The tutor who had taken me for my advocacy assessment was timetabled to take us and I had been preparing to shout the word 'bitch' ventriloquists style at her-but she didn't show and we had the guy who took me for my ill-fated experience on the PLS route (not a good omen).

It was OK, but nothing spectacular. Again, we went over a series of exam-type questions with the usual lecture on timing. Some good points came out so it wasn't a complete waste but in common with the majority of these I had a distinct feeling of 'a chance missed'

So, Friday. Last day of the compulsaries. My last ever business class. Well, keeping up the theme-Friday came and went.

More? Ok, it was another revision class, Something at the back of my head is screaming 'why not use the two superfluous business law classes to put the extra criminal into?'

I really must take some more medication

This time we looked at a corporation tax question, a conduct (yaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwnnn) question and a comparison between partnerships, limited liability partnerships and companies for someone who was looking to expand their sole trader business. It was all very sweet, and (for once) quite easy going but necessary? Not really.

Now we come to a problem. I had been prepared to 'put the boot in' on this particular tutor. His teaching style, his running around the room so that our heads swivelled back and forth and we ended up playing some weird game of tutor tennis. His rapid 'machine gun' style of speech, his appalling handwriting and his regular keeping us in over time were all things that I wanted to note.

But, I found out this week that he is 99% likely to be one of my tutors for the electives. Ah, rapid change of plan then. (god, I'm so hypocritical). I was relatively severe, I did mention that we had too many presentations and that I was less than keen on questions directed at specific students but it was a bit wishy-washy.

Sorry

The urge for self-preservation was too strong. I think I scored him two 4s and two 3s and a 2 (for pacing)

And now I should explain why I marked as I have. The tutors don't get to see us putting the marks down (although any fool should be able to tie handwriting to a person-I, in particular have a very distinctive style), so we have a chance to be totally honest.

I have taken the opportunity to look at a few of my fellow students grades. Almost to a one they have recorded five 5s for each tutor.
With respect, what is the point of that? We have had no perfect lessons, nor perfect tutors. Nobody has come to class with perfect preparation (one of the criteria) so why award the perfect mark?
What is the tutor going to learn from that?
What is the College going to learn?
If the College believes from this that everything is perfect, it will make no changes.

FACT.

Which means that next years intake will struggle where we struggled-they will have to put up with the uneven pacing and workload, the variation in tutoring between good and appalling.

Democracy isn't perfect but it's the only chance of changing things for the better

(climbs down from soapbox)

Sorry about that, I get a bit carried away. One of the reason why I'm so hard on the tutors is that I've been fortunate to have had some truly wonderful lecturers and tutors in my life. Real '5s' if you like. Probably the best of these was the Professor of Education at Exeter University, the late Ted Wragg. Now there was a man who could hold a class of 100 spellbound for hours. A great teacher is a very special person-learn all you can from them.

The last thing I did on Friday was put my toys in my locker at College. This way the worst distractions in my life are out of reach and I can enter the 'tank' and get my revision done. So here I float in my 'deprivation tank'-bored out of my flaming mind!

I'm sitting my interviewing assessment this Tuesday-so I'll write a short piece sometime this week to say how it went. Other than that I won't write until the 25th of February after all the compulsary exams are finished.

And I'm released from solitary...