Mini Police host their first Awards Ceremony

Derbyshire Constabulary have hosted three award ceremonies after the launch of their very first Mini Police program.

Derbyshire Constabulary have hosted three award ceremonies after the launch of their very first Mini Police program. The scheme is designed to give young children the opportunity to learn about safety, their role within the community and how the police work to keep them safe.

The Mini Police initiative has involved children from three primary schools, Landau Forte Academy Moorhead in Alvaston, Spire Juniors in Chesterfield, and Peartree Juniors in Normanton. All three awards ceremonies have taken place at the schools over the last month, with lots of certificates and badges handed out.

During the year the children have been very excited to learn and meet various teams from Derbyshire. Including meeting Police officers in different roles, exploring various Police vehicles, watching the Police dogs in action, and even meeting their local Firefighters.

They have learnt about a range of topics including the importance of the role of the Police in the community, water safety by the RNLI, anti-social behaviour, cyber safety, pedestrian safety, hate crime and fire safety.

They have also been out in their community making a difference by encouraging drivers to slow down, giving Christmas cards to the residents of local care homes and by sharing crime prevention and cyber safety messages to family and friends.

At the end of the program, our team asked each school to nominate children for a community-based award, an ‘I made a difference award’.  This award was for a child within the school that has learnt from the Mini Police programme and put their new skills into practice to make a difference at the school with their classmates, within their family and within the wider community. 

The first of our three winners of the ‘I made a difference’ award 2021 – 2022 is from Pear Tree school. The winner was announced as Alans. He won the award after showing an extreme change in attitude, he made some wrong choices earlier in the school year, but has worked with Police to become a sensible citizen and has actively improved his behaviour.

The second winner from Spire Junior is Ben, who won the award after his teachers said that he has shown impeccable manners and dedication. He has strived to produce the best work he possibly can and has been a model citizen within the community and a role model for the entire year group.  

The third winner from Landau Forte Academy is Destiny, for her kind and caring attitude and for being proactive within her community. She has been instrumental in suggesting further projects in school to build on the Mini Police sessions. Her career goal is to become a lawyer and she has already begun to make links about how valuable her Mini Police experience has been.

We also had an overall award for the Mini Police Officer of the year. This award is for the one student across all three schools who has shown the biggest transition. This was awarded to Max from Landau Forte Academy. Max won due to his improvement in attitude, aspiration and resilience which now translates into the classroom. Max has positively engaged with activities and visitors and has made the connection between how this project can benefit his own family as well as his community. We are so proud of his change in behaviours and his ignited interest in the programme. We look forward to hopefully watch him become an Armed Response Officer in the future!

Due to this, we were very grateful to see two of our armed police officers come to the school to congratulate Max for his award and wish him the best in his studies.

Every student who took part in the Mini Police Program was also awarded a certificate and Mini Police pin badge to recognise their work and dedication. We’d like to thank all the children for their hard work over the last year, their awards are very well deserved, and we can’t wait to see how they plan to continue their community efforts.