Crucial Crew
Vendetta Against Vandalism…. the price you pay!
Given a chest of cash, how would you improve your
neighbourhood?
Exactly how far does £50,000 go?
Year six pupils from Rochdale enrolled on a Crucial Crew workshop
have been answering that very question. That is, of course, once
they’ve used this ‘virtual cash’ to put right all the mindless acts
of vandalism on the estates they live on.
Crucial Crew, is an awareness scheme which has become a regular
fixture to the school calendar delivering personal and safety
education messages to Year six children (10 and 11 year olds) and
seeks to encourage model behaviour and good citizenship through
active participation in a range of scenarios including:
• First Aid, Rail safety, Drugs, Crime issues, Vandalism,
Shoplifting, Building Site safety, Fire, Personal safety,
Electrical safety, Road safety, Environmental issues, a scenario on
Safe/Dangerous Medicines, Water safety, Health issues, and Bus
safety.
Along with RBH, workshops – held at Bury Interchange during
September and November - are facilitated by partner public sector
agencies such as Greater Manchester Police, British Transport
police, GMPTE, Fire Service and Ambulance and Road Safety. During
the RBH workshop pupils take part in role-play and are given the
responsibility of the budget allocated for estates. Initially,
photographs are displayed to highlight damage caused by vandals on
some RBH estates.
Pupils are then given ‘virtual cash’ to the value of £50,000, which
they can spend on building a new play park with all the amenities
they desire. The sting in the tale comes when it is drawn to their
attention that before they can have their park they have to fork
out cash to rectify all the areas destroyed by vandalism. The
lesson they learn is that due to the repercussions of the
thoughtless actions of a minority £50,000 doesn’t go very far at
all! Communities First Co-ordinator, Ruth Sillence said: “The
children learn invaluable lessons through the Crucial Crew
experience.
The teachers that came to the sessions were quick to realise this
and commented on how important they believed the workshops to be.
In fact, they were so impressed by the teaching methods that they
will be rolling them out in the classrooms on a more frequent
basis.”
Crucial Crew workshops help to deliver the important message to
kids, in this particular case, that every year Councils spend
thousands of pounds on cleaning up estates and this cash would
otherwise be spent on more luxurious commodities to improve their
communities.
RBH will be taking part in this event in September and November
2011.