Case Study: Essex Police achieves improved training engagement and operational readiness with SMART Technologies

Interactive technology brings efficiency and relevance to police training

Essex Police’s training team, led by Sergeant Andy Spink at the Essex Police College, faced the challenge of keeping officers engaged in classroom sessions and making complex, often legislative, material directly relevant to frontline duties. Trainers also needed reliable records of who had received specific instruction and better ways to coordinate multi-agency responses from the college’s Gold Command facilities.

Introducing SMART Board interactive whiteboards (and planned Bridgit conferencing) let trainers deliver more interactive, practical sessions, save annotated presentations with timestamps and attendance, and distribute materials electronically. The result has been higher trainee engagement, clear, auditable training records that support accountability, and improved operational capability—already demonstrated when the lecture theatre was used effectively as a Gold Command briefing room during the July 7 response.

Essex Police