It’s been a long time, due to the pandemic, since staff and children at Sugar Hill Primary have been able to open our classroom doors for our local police to come in and work with us. With Covid19 Risk Assessments in place we were delighted to once again have Sergeant Boyd and three PCSOs in school to work with staff, Year 5 and Year 6 children for the full day on Tuesday 23rd November.
Mrs Legge, Deputy Head and Safeguarding Lead, attended a meeting with Sergeant Boyd discussing workshops that the police could come in and deliver to share key safety messages with everyone.
It was decided that sessions would cover Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Consequences of Crime, Anti-bullying and Online/Internet Safety.
Staff and children participated in a full day of workshops culminating in a reward session at the end of the school day. Jet and Ben arrived at the end of the day as all the children were presented with certificates for their engagement in all the workshops.
At the end of the day the children were asked to reflect on their learning. Here are just a few of their reflections.
Jamie – ‘I enjoyed doing true or false with Alfie because it was about anti-social behaviour. I was taught about smashed windows and vandalism in that session. I also found out a lot about cyber-bullying and a new type of online bullying called online grooming. It’s where someone bribes you to tell them your personal details’.
Ava- ‘I found out that behind the Newcastle Football Stadium there is a wall of graffiti. I thought the sessions were a fun way to learn something important like cyber-bullying and online grooming’.
Carter- ‘I enjoyed writing what we want to be when we are older. It was great to hear everyone’s amazing aspirations!’
Noah- ‘I found out to not give our personal information to strangers’.
Over the next few weeks staff will reinforce these key messages to the children. The value of strong links with our local police can never be underestimated. Not only were the children engaged in the sessions and learning first hand from the police key safety messages, they also spent social time talking at breaktimes and having lunch together.
We look forward to future engagement activities with our local police officers and developing stronger links with the police. Plans to work with other year groups are at the discussion stage. Watch out for future stories!
Year 5 pupils who are Mini Police Officers, are meeting regularly with PCSO Sarah Button during their After School Club on a Thursday evening.
A huge thank you to Sergeant Boyd and his team. In uncertain times and with ever increasing anti-social behaviour in our local community links such as these are so appreciated.
Sergeant Boyd commented- ‘Loved the engagement with the children. It is sometimes difficult to pitch the content of presentation right but the children interacted so well and understood the intended messages. It is so important to deliver these sessions to amazing young minds.
PCSO Middleton said- ‘I have really enjoyed my day at Sugar Hill. The students were great and a credit to the school. Hopefully they have taken something from our presentations and act upon it’.
PCSO Kipling remarked- ‘It’s been great to be back in the schools to deliver these presentations and I really think the children have enjoyed it. It was brilliant to play some football and basketball at lunch time too, thank you for having us!’
PCSO Button summed up her day as- ‘The day has been so good. It’s great to be able to get back into schools and talking about some really important topics. It’s amazing we get to have the lesson time for the conversations and the break and dinner times just to engage and have fun!’
Another great day in our Sugar Hill calendar of events for this academic year.