Primary school children from across Caerphilly county borough are set to receive important lessons in safety, health and crime at this year’s Crucial Crew events.
The Crucial Crew programme aims to educate children aged ten and eleven on how to keep themselves safe and how to react in certain situations by tackling the everyday dangers they may encounter.
The events will once again be held at the ‘Safety Zone’ in Trefforest, and will run for four weeks, starting on Monday 25th January. At the Safety Zone, real life scenarios and exhibits are in place to help the pupils learn about the importance of safety. This includes a street with a corner shop, a police station, railway track, forestry, electricity sub-station, pub, building site, pedestrian crossing and a fire house.
Year 6 pupils from the county borough’s primary schools will attend for either a morning or afternoon session, working their way around the ten scenarios with ten-minute practical sessions covering safety messages in each of the exhibits. This will include advice around underage drinking and anti-social behaviour, road safety, substance misuse awareness, fire safety messages, first aid, wildlife and conservation and recycling issues.
The workshops are lively, interactive sessions with front-line members of the emergency services and associated organisations. These include Gwent Police, Caerphilly County Borough Council, Capita Symonds Road Safety, Forestry Commission, South Wales Fire and Rescue Service, Western Power and representatives from the building trade amongst others.
Officers from Caerphilly County Borough’s Trading Standards will also be talking to the participants in a purpose built Co-op shop about age-restricted goods. The children will be asked to take from the shelves a range of items including alcohol, tobacco and solvent based products in order to engage them in a discussion on what products they can and cannot buy according to their age.
This is an important event that promotes safety in our communities. It teaches children who are about to move onto secondary school how to keep safe while out playing, how to stop danger and how to react when something goes wrong.
The events also encourage crime prevention and raise awareness about issues such as how to stay safe on the internet, as well as raising awareness about the consequences of bad behaviour in the community.
At the end of the event, the children will each also receive a workbook, consisting of puzzles, word searches, quizzes and information on everything they encounter on their visit to Crucial Crew. In previous years, teachers have commented on how important this workbook is as a tool in their curriculum that can be used as a follow up to Crucial Crew, ensuring that important messages are not lost.
Cllr Lyn Ackerman, cabinet member for the environment said;
“Attending a Crucial Crew event is a great opportunity for children across the county borough to learn how to be safe when out and about, and how to take care of themselves and those around them. I am sure that as with previous years, this will be a worthwhile and enjoyable experience for all involved.”
School Liaison Officer, PC Janine Kerslake said;
“The Crucial Crew events are an interactive way of providing the school pupils with some very important messages. They take part in a variety of short workshops to help them learn how to react in certain situations and how to ensure their safety at school, at home and when they are out in the community.
We have been taking part in these events for a number of years, and we find that the pupils are always willing to take on board these messages and hopefully find the information useful for them to use in everyday situations.”
Crucial Crew is taking place at the Trefforest Safety Zone, based on the Trefforest Industrial Estate in Rhondda Cynon Taf. The 10,000 sq. ft. factory unit is run by the Rhondda Cynon Taf Community Safety Partnership and the agencies that have been involved in erecting their scenarios.
