Five is too young to learn about knife crime. But schools need more support | Pat Green

As the number of children penalised for knife possession rises 16%, Scotland Yard has called for five year olds to be taught about knife crime

When DCS Sean Yates, Scotland Yard’s head of knife crime, called for children as young as five to be taught about knives, many may have felt the country had reached new lows. Is the problem really so extensive, that we need to expose every five year old to its horrors?

At the Ben Kinsella Trust, we have been delivering anti-knife crime workshops to schools since 2012. These workshops are aimed at 10-year olds and upwards, as children move from primary to secondary school. We don’t believe we need to extend these workshops to children as young as five. We don’t want to scare children by making their world seem unsafe. The preferred approach is similar to that used when teaching children about “stranger danger”, alerting them to the possibility of risk without scaring them unnecessarily.

Continue reading...

from Voluntary Sector Network | The Guardian http://ift.tt/2DqI7Tr