By Miss Dawson (Head of Year 9)

Last month, a group of Year 9 students attended the Police Crime Commissioner’s Conference alongside other Year 9 students from across Bedford, hosted by Festus Akinbusoye, the Bedfordshire Police Crime Commissioner and his team. 

The first session was led by the VERU – the Violence and Exploitation Reduction Unit. They showed the story of Azaan Kaleem, who was 18 years old when he was fatally stabbed in Luton in 2018. The session was delivered by Azaan’s mother, Roseann, who joined the VERU in order to try to reduce the number of people who had to go through the same experience as her. Her story was extremely moving and her passion to reduce knife crime, sexual exploitation and the resulting mental health impacts was inspiring.

The afternoon session, entitled Step In, Speak Up, focussed on being an active bystander in situations of peer on peer abuse, giving them strategies for how to approach these situations safely and purposely. 

Following the conference, students from Bedford School were invited to BGS to discuss how the information and useful strategies from the day could be disseminated to the rest of their year group as part of a joint citizenship day in the Summer Term.