This week we have been thrilled to welcome into our academy Paul McGovern MBE, the HMP Manchester Community Team and several GMP Salford Police Officers for workshops with our Year Groups 7, 8, 9 and 10 as part of their ‘Actions Have Consequences’ programme and ‘Save a life, drop the knife’ campaign.

Paul and the team have been delivering these sessions to schools nationwide since 2009. The informative and hard-hitting sessions deal with the effects of anti-social behaviour including knife crime, gangs, drug use and violence and the importance of staying safe online. The programme builds bridges between local children, teachers, local neighbourhood policing teams, school based officers and the youth offending team.

Paul, a serving prison officer dog handler with HMP Manchester, delivered the engaging sessions with real life stories and examples of the cases he’s dealt with, what it is like to be in prison and the effects that the actions of the inmates have on their victims and their families.

On the second say of workshops we were also honoured to be joined by Superintendent Caroline Hemingway-Head of Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit, Detective Inspector Roger Edwards-Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit, Michelle Metcalfe-Deputy Governor at HMP Manchester who all also spoke to our Year 7 and 8 cohorts reinforcing the warnings around anti-social behaviour.