Year 6 pupils from Gotham Primary School have been on a unique school trip – they have visited an interactive centre in Leicester to help them learn a variety of life skills from internet safety to fire risks in the home.
Thanks to sponsorship from local organisations including British Gypsum (whose head office is at nearby East Leake), the pupils visited the ‘Warning Zone’. Over a full day the pupils learned about fire risk in the home, knife crime, electricity and building sites, alcohol, personal safety, risk around water, arson and criminal damage, road safety and risk around railways. The session also taught them about internet safety including online grooming, phishing, cyber bullying, sharing Images, internet terms, and protecting personal information.
The Warning Zone’s mission is to ‘reduce the amount of accidental injury and deaths in young people and to also reduce the number of children entering the Criminal Justice System’.
Gotham Primary School governor Andy Howard said: “This was an incredibly worthwhile day away from the classroom. The Warning Zone engages with pupils at a key transition in their life – when they are on the verge of becoming adolescents and young adults.
“The aim then is to teach them vital messages when they are younger so that they can make more informed decisions about risks and consequences both on and off-line and understand the age of criminal responsibility in this country which is 10. We thank our sponsors for enabling the trip to happen.”
Martin Laing from British Gypsum added: “We were delighted to be able to support Gotham Primary School pupils on this trip. Safety is a core value of our organisation, so when we heard about the agenda of the visit to Warning Zone, encouraging young people to consider many aspects of their personal safety, we immediately decided to provide support.”