These days, a child’s formal education involves far more than learning how to read, write and do arithmetic. Social and emotional literacy, protective behaviours and respectful relationships have become an increasingly important part of the curriculum in primary and secondary schools.
Leading WA safety education charity Constable Care Foundation (CCF) is playing a vital role in supporting WA schools to imbue these requisite components in the syllabus. In just one year, in 2022-23, the foundation reached an estimated 76,500 WA students through its theatre-in-education programs, with 25 per cent of them delivered to remote and regional schools.
“Keeping Western Australian children and young people safe can’t be done without a strong partnership with our schools. The foundation has had this relationship for 35 years,” the charity’s chief executive Ian Anstee said.
“There aren’t many gen-Xers, millennials and now gen-Zs educated in WA who don’t remember the Constable Care team visiting their school and all the excitement that came with it.
“Today we’re offering way more than just primary school puppet shows. The younger generations can now experience hands-on excursions at the Safety School in Maylands, while in high schools our interactive theatre and film workshops are really making a positive impact.”
The long-running not-for-profit offers a diverse range of curriculum-aligned incursions for K-12 through its Constable Care programs for primary-aged students and Youth Choices for teens. All incursions are designed to complement the current curriculum and include up-to-date teacher resource packs to make things easier for educators.
They start in lower primary with the well-loved Constable Care puppet shows about protective behaviours, First Aid skills and emergency numbers.
As children progress to upper primary, online safety, respectful relationships and empathy skills are focused on through age-appropriate interactive theatre shows.
Under the Department of Education’s Child Protection policy, principals are required to implement protective behaviours education that aligns with the WA Curriculum across all phases of schooling, with the aim to prevent abuse, reduce violence and promote wellbeing. The mandated protective behaviours education focuses on developing skills such as self-awareness, emotional intelligence, problem-solving, persistence, assertiveness and help-seeking.
Constable Care Foundation supports teachers to deliver these requirements with incursion programs such as ‘Fun Scary’ for K-3, which uses puppetry and song to teach the difference between scary things that are fun - like rollercoasters - and scary secrets that need to be shared with a trusted adult. The recently updated ‘Screen Name’ incursion for Years 3-6 stresses the importance of not revealing personal information online via a fun and energetic performance showing a child being catfished by an online gaming partner.
“New national statistics from WA Child Safety Services revealed the growing risk of grooming in the world of online gaming,” Mr Anstee said. “We worked with experts in eSafety to update ‘Screen Name’ this year to reflect this new trend.”
On top of this, in 2022, CCF delivered a groundbreaking Ethics and Critical Thinking pilot program to Year 5 students at 12 public primary schools with positive results.
Once students enter secondary school, Constable Care’s Youth Choices programs cover a range of typical social pressures affecting teenagers’ day-to-day lives using participatory forum theatre, film and cutting-edge technology.
High school students can explore the risks and reasons behind substance abuse, the importance of consent and social boundaries, how to recognise early signs of mental illness and seek help, bullying and cyberbullying, family and domestic violence and coercive control, cultural diversity and discrimination through the programs.
The teenagers can also learn how to be safe on a night out in Perth by doing the police-led City After Dark excursion, or experience it in the classroom via virtual reality technology. The Rapid Response Theatre incursion and longer intensive programs allow students to choose and examine their own issue affecting their school community via on-the-spot interactive performances.
Mr Anstee said Youth Choices has taken off since the foundation started working with high school students in 2013. It has grown to offer 10 different incursions as well as the intensive options, with various other developments in the pipeline.
“Educating our young people for an unknown future is a tough gig. We support WA schools to do this by enhancing the curriculum in a creative and engaging way,” Mr Anstee said.
“We’re constantly working with other organisations and experts to develop and rework our programs. This ensures we adopt a research-backed, best-practice approach that keeps up with the times.
“Empowering the next generation to live safer, happier lives fosters a better community for everyone.”
By Hearts and Minds
