By Miss Dawson (Head of Year 9)

On Wednesday 11th June, Year 9 joined Bedford School for a Citizenship morning. The original idea for the morning came from students attending a Police Crime Commissioner’s Conference in 2023, looking at the crimes that impact students of their age, including peer-on-peer abuse, knife crime, and exploitation, as well as the support available to tackle them. Following the conference, these students recruited a larger group whom they educated with the information from the conference, and the students produced a resource to use with their peers on the Citizenship morning.

Now in its third year, the project involves bringing together students from both schools to decide on topics, and then planning, producing and delivering a lesson style presentations, with activities, this year on gender equality and positive relationships.  This gave students an opportunity to speak about something that they feel passionate about, and many of the students stepped outside of their comfort zone, working with students they didn’t know and presenting in front of their peers.

The second part of the morning was led by PC Emily Hurst from the Education and Diversion team at Bedfordshire Police. It began by looking at the profound repercussions of crime, affecting not only the perpetrators but also their loved ones and the broader community. This centred on the tragic story of Roseann Taylor who lost her son AJ to a fatal stabbing in Luton during a confrontation with a gang in 2018. PC Hurst also spoke about the law relating to stop and search and joint enterprise before answering questions from the students.