Wiltshire's Police and Crime Commissioner, Philip Wilkinson has described the work of a scheme created for primary school children in Swindon as a positive way to set them on the right path.

The PCC made the comments on a visit to Lethbridge Primary in Old Town, when they won the prestigious Junior Good Citizen shield, after coming top of the thirty-nine schools which took part.

Junior Good Citizen has been running in Swindon for over thirty years and involves a number of agencies who work with schools to educate children aged 10 and 11 to better safeguard themselves.

Topics covered in the sessions included personal and online safety, road safety, weapons awareness, substance misuse and railway safety.

This year, two new topics were introduced, with Barnardo’s leading a session on mental health and Swindon Borough Council leading a session on smoking and vaping.

Andrea Hector is the Youth and Early Intervention coordinator at Wiltshire Police:

“Firstly, I’d like to thank all the schools in the Swindon area that took part.

“It was a tough decision to choose a winner, but the pupils at Lethbridge thoroughly embraced every element of the day, asked some fantastic questions and it was great to hear how some of them went home and shared the information they’d learned.

“From speaking to the schools, it was important to hear how they found the new topics, especially concerning vaping, particularly relevant to their pupils”

Mr Wilkinson was joined at the school by Andrea and Shelley Gray from the Youth and Early Intervention team along with PCSO Emma Coleman, as they surprised pupils with the award during their assembly.

Bethany is a year 6 pupil at Lethbridge:

“I really enjoyed going to the Junior Good Citizen event with my year. I had a great time and liked how there were different things to do and learn with different people telling us stuff. 

"The stranger danger part was my favourite. At the start we were told not to speak to anyone without a yellow jacket on. Then when we weren’t thinking about it, someone without a yellow jacket spoke to us and some of us talked to him (I didn’t)!

“When I got home, I was excited to tell my family all about it. I told my sister who is a teenager about lots of stuff that she didn’t know!

“Then the Police and Crime Commissioner came to our school and told us that we’d won the shield as the winning school! We’re all really happy and it’s a really nice thing for us to win together in our last couple of weeks at Lethbridge before we go to a different secondary school” 

The PCC spoke to the Year 6 children about their achievement and challenged the school to retain the trophy when they take part in the scheme next year.

Mr Wilkinson said:

"Early intervention is a key part of my Police and Crime Plan and it’s an area the public have asked me to focus on.

"One of the key principles of the Junior Good Citizen scheme is to engage young people in a way where they know they’re part of the conversation, instead of being talked at.

"It creates a relationship with Wiltshire Police officers in a setting where they're comfortable, and gives them the skills and values to set them on the right path as they move to a bigger school.

"The fact that we've consistently had over 30 schools participating every year for the past three years shows how engaged our schoolteachers and our schools are, in what is clearly a very productive and positive scheme."

Publish Wednesday 10 July 2024