Knife Crime Awareness in New Cross

Our Knife Crime Awareness Workshops in Primary Schools
We deliver knife crime awareness workshops in several local primary schools in New Cross. Working with Year 5 and 6 classes, we cover the following topics:

  • The reasons why children and young people might carry knives and the impact of doing so.
  • The laws surrounding knife carrying and knife crime, including minimum sentences and Joint Enterprise.
  • What is empathy and the impact of knife crime has on the wider community.
  • Why people join gangs and the difference between good friendship groups and gangs.
  • What are our vital organs, what they do and how to protect them.
  • How to deal with a serious bleed.
  • How to manage an emergency situation and deliver CRP

We also visit the Ben Kinsella Trust workshop and exhibition. The exhibition is amazing and incredibly moving and includes a mock up prison cell with a ex-con giving a talk about the dangers of knife crime and Joint Enterprise. Here’s some of the feedback we’ve previously received:

 ‘I feel so happy and so sad. I know more about knife crime and how to help someone and I know more about children who have been killed.’

‘ I still feel anxious but now I know what to do and I can other people too what they can do.’

‘I’ve seen flowers on the railings where I live because some big kids stabbed another big kid. They were in gangs or something and this makes me scared.’

‘I want to help anyone who has been stabbed with the first aid I have learned.’

‘Kids like Ben Kinsella and Damilola Taylor are kids just like me and they got stabbed. This has got to stop.’

“If we can get to children when they are young and teach them the anti-knife messages, it will make a huge difference to crime rates in our community. This will have a positive impact on lives and in the long run save cost and the huge heartbreak for victims and their families and the high rate of custodial sentences of particularly young black men and boys. Funding for these Workshops are imperative!”
Sonia McFarlane, Headteacher St James Hatcham 

“Our Year 6 children took part in the knife awareness workshops in the summer term 2017.  We feel that our children particularly need these workshops as many of them have already been exposed to the use of knives as weapons through being around older siblings, news articles about the local area and listening to adults’ conversations. We have had a few instances where very young children have role-played using a knife as a weapon and on a couple of occasions children have picked up a knife in the dining room and threatened to hurt another child.

I spoke to children after the workshops and they were very articulate about the danger of knives and what they could do to minimise risk to themselves. They were also able to explain how they could help someone who had been hurt by a knife. I would certainly recommend that these workshops are offered to primary-aged children on a regular basis”.
Ann Butcher, Headteacher, Childeric Primary School.