Honeydew Police were flooded with all sorts questions when they visited Watersong Learning Centre on 29 May, in celebration of Child Protection Week.
The curious pupils seem to have been waiting for a moment to be closer to a police officer as they had lots of questions for the police.
“What do people eat in jail, where is your gun and do the dogs in the K-9 unit have names?”, were some of the questions police had to answer.
Principal of the school Jeanelle Rundel said they appreciated the visit by the police.
“It’s good that the police were here to break some of the wrong perceptions that the children had about crime and some other things in life,” said Rundel.
She added that it helped that their pupils heard a different voice on safety issues.
“It’s also good that the children were exposed to services of the police and don’t see them as the enemy.”
Talking to the pupils, Honeydew Police spokesperson Warrant Officer Karen Jacobs told pupils about the dangers of trusting strangers and also told them to understand that a stranger is someone you don’t know as most of them believed that strangers are mainly male and usually had a certain skin colour.
WO Jacobs also spoke to pupils about gun safety and also broke some of the myths the children had about guns.
“You can never tell that a gun is a toy gun because it is not black, a real gun can have any colour,” said WO Jacobs.
She also touched on the issue of children’s rights and responsibilities which went quite well as the children proved to be clued up about their rights and responsibilities.
For pupils, it was a great morning of interaction with the police as some of them thought police officers were grumpy and strict people who never had time to speak to children.
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