Mini Police

Ten children from Year 5 and Year 6 are elected by their peers to serve as Birchwood's Mini Police. They work each term alongside a local PCSO and a teacher, covering units on online safety and digital resilience, road safety, crime prevention and anti-social behaviour, and kindness and respect for others.

Since the scheme began at Birchwood in 2018, the Mini Police have made a visible difference to the school and the wider community. They have worked to make the roads outside school safer, speaking to drivers about where they park and sharing the evidence on why parking near a school gate puts children at risk. They have visited the other schools in the Forest Skies Federation — Woodlands Infant and Nursery School and The Lancaster School — to talk to younger children about staying safe online and about what to do if they see someone being bullied. They have also met local councillors to put the case for safer roads around the school, and persuaded them to look again at how the streets outside Birchwood could be improved.

Being a Mini Police officer asks something of a child. They are elected by their classmates, they represent the school in public, and they are expected to model the standards they are asking others to keep. It is one of the ways our pupils learn that democracy, the rule of law, tolerance and mutual respect are things you do rather than things you are told about.