ICAEW’s training films are designed to provoke discussion, challenge mindsets and encourage new perspectives. Written by Duncan Wiggetts, ICAEW Chief Officer Regulation & Conduct, they help viewers develop professional scepticism and ethical judgement, as well as practical skills.

“Whether you’re a student, an accountant or a finance director, these films have something for everybody,” says Chris. “But, to derive maximum value, I believe training sessions need to be well facilitated and adapted for the audience.”

For Chris, this means taking ownership of the learning experience rather than simply screening the film. “You’ve got to embrace it and personalise it for your delegates,” he explains. “Good facilitation is not just about presenting something; it is about getting to the heart of it, immersing people in the story and drawing out the key issues.”

This was particularly important for Armstrong Watson’s audit students. “If you simply ask students to watch the film and tick a box, it probably won’t achieve what you want it to,” says Chris. “I wanted the training to be fully facilitated, as interactive as possible and delivered in person.”

Building context and taking ownership

Chris had used ICAEW’s earlier films with students in his previous role as Associate Dean for Education at Newcastle University Business School. When he joined Armstrong Watson, he decided that Crossing the Line, the fourth film in ICAEW’s training film library, was an ideal way to engage the firm’s audit students in key ethical and technical challenges facing the profession.

Chris ran 11 training sessions, with a maximum of 15 students per session, held at different offices across the business. These sessions were mandatory for all students, whatever their stage of training. “We wanted to keep the numbers small enough to encourage discussion and make sure they felt comfortable asking questions,” he explains.

Before playing the film at each screening, Chris gave a 10-minute introduction. “This was to outline the film’s objectives and what students needed to look out for in terms of risks to objectivity or integrity,” he says. He also added further context by explaining the rules of the football world, the relevance of the various characters, and the pressures that both businesses were under.

He also reminded students that viewers are party to conversations the auditors do not hear. “You have to remember that you know things the auditors do not,” he explains.

Crossing the Line follows two audit teams working on the accounts of fast-growing listed software company Xoltic and struggling football club Scarbridge FC, which Xoltic’s CEO has recently acquired.

Although the film is divided into four parts, Chris introduced additional pauses, creating seven sections across each three-hour session. Before each section, students received prompts and questions highlighting issues to consider.

“To personalise things, we used firm-branded slides,” he adds. The first slide showed the ‘Armstrong Watson Picture House’, sponsored by Xoltic, with Scarbridge football ground in the background. This served two purposes: first, it brought Xoltic and Scarbridge to the students’ immediate attention; and second, being AI-generated itself, it fed into, and reinforced, some of the issues addressed within the film.

Embedding the learning

“The students’ interaction with, and response to, the film was really good,” says Chris. “They all left with a smile and a thank you.” The feedback afterwards was also positive, with around 90% of respondents rating the sessions five out of five.

The feedback questionnaire contained a freeform question asking people what they had taken away from the film. Answers included: ‘make sure you’re always asking the right questions’; ‘not just accepting information from management, but going deeper’; and ‘realising that deadlines are important, but you can't let a deadline rule the audit opinion’.

“These points were made by the students themselves,” emphasises Chris, “indicating they had absorbed the film’s core messages.” Respondents also offered ideas for future films, which suggests the format had engaged and inspired them.

If there was anything the students weren’t sure about, or they wanted to ask further questions, Chris explicitly encouraged them to get in touch with him in the weeks following the screening. “A few people did come back to me,” he says, “so they really did get involved and wanted to continue the conversation.”

To add interest and keep the discussion open, he also posted about the sessions on LinkedIn. “Again, this was about embracing the learning experience and getting conversations going; lots of the students engaged and liked the posts,” he says.

Once all 11 sessions were complete, Chris sent every student the slides, as well as summary notes of what happened in the film, as an aide-memoire. “It’s important to send out a reminder,” he stresses, “because down the line they might be thinking: ‘Oh, there was this film we watched that had something to do with integrity’. And if they’ve got some notes and slides, it'll help to remind them and keep the issues alive.”

Rolling out the film beyond students

While students were the initial focus, Chris is now looking at rolling the film out across the wider audit department as part of its CPD programme. “We will approach the sessions differently for staff with more experience and at higher management levels. Ideally, we will do in-person sessions again, but the difference will be in the prompts and questions we choose.”

Chris’s main advice to other firms is to avoid treating the film as a box-ticking exercise. Instead, facilitators should invest time in understanding the story, the pressures facing the characters and the technical issues involved. “You need to draw out the issues that are most relevant to your audience,” he says. “That is what makes the film resonate.”

Resources

• Find out more about Crossing the Line and watch the trailer
• Take a look behind the scenes with the film’s writer Duncan Wiggetts
• Check out more ICAEW films in our award-winning series
• How Crossing the Line is being used