Vital life lessons have been learnt by pupils at a special activities day held at Greneway School in Royston last Friday, raising awareness of important safety issues.
The exciting events were organised by the school’s Personal, Social & Health Education co-ordinator Allan Gee, entailing a series of briefings and hands-on workshops given by local emergency services.
A video-presentation produced by the charity ‘Milly’s Fund’ was also shown, teaching children to stay safe in memory of a 13-year-old girl murdered in March 2002.
PSHE is a relatively new part of the national curriculum linked to the government’s ‘Every Child Matters’ initiative. Mr Gee said: “It highlights the importance of individual children, and gives pupils self awareness and social skills. It is to do with personal responsibility and safety for themselves and others.”
All year groups were involved in the day’s activities, as PC Colin Mingay and Police Community Support Officer Alanna Robinson covered essentials such as road safety alongside new themes including protection whilst on internet chat-rooms, mobile-phone camera abuse and the risks of carrying personal weapons.
Later, all enjoyed getting their hands dirty making informative posters and board-games following internet research.
Year 5 were also treated to a drama performance about firework dangers and shown first-aid burns treatments by the Fire Service, both extremely pertinent around bonfire night.
Year 8 children explored text-message bullying, physical aggression and home-alone safety using participative theatrical role-play, after viewing Milly’s Fund video ‘Watch over me.’
Mr Gee said: “The day was very successful. The children enjoyed it all, especially the practical parts, and have raised their awareness of how to keep safe and avoid risks.”
ENDS
Word count: 271
REFLECTIVE REPORT:
This story was sent to the Royston Crow in a press release sent by Greneway School’s P.R. Department. It was delegated to me by one of the news team to follow up.
It was a good story to write in that it had plenty of clear photo opportunities to help create an interesting piece for publication.
I was able to write the majority from the press release, which was comprehensive, detailed and thorough.
I needed to speak to Allan Gee to get quotes to make it interesting, otherwise it would have largely been just a list of events. His quotes make the piece more entertaining.
Getting hold of Mr Gee was problematic. I only had a school telephone number for him, which he was rarely able to answer during teaching hours. Although I worked until 5pm, I had to phone in school time which limited my window of opportunity. Eventually I managed to get through to speak to Mr Gee the day before we went to print.
Mr Gee was also not a particularly talkative source, and it was an effort to get him to be forthcoming about his project. I had to question him closely to get any useable quotes.
A school event is rarely in itself exciting; therefore I had to tease out an angle. The most obvious seemed to be the learning of vital skills and the importance of the messages being conveyed, supported by the fun manner they were being presented in.
The large amount of information in the press release proved problematic, as it was difficult to condense it down into a coherent article with logical progression, but I was able to stick to a four paragraph introduction and write using the “inverted triangle” approach, although I felt it best to finish with a quote.
Word count: 300
An electronic copy of this story, subbed and published, can be found on the Crow’s website here:
http://www.royston-crow.co.uk/search/story.aspx?brand=ROYWestOnline&category=News&itemid=WEED08%20Nov%202007%2017:03:48:470&tBrand=ROYWestOnline&tCategory=search
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