Kidderminster pupils join police and ‘army’ to solve Martian mystery (From Kidderminster Shuttle)
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Kidderminster pupils join police and ‘army’ to solve Martian mystery
8:40am Thursday 10th January 2013 in News
By William Tomaney
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Out of this world: Emily Zammit, 10, ‘military man’ Mike Salter, Vanessa Halford and Ben Lord, 11, check out the ‘UFO’ remains. Picture: MIRIAM BALFRY. 021309M.
PUPILS at a Kidderminster school were stunned when they were led to believe an alien had crash landed on their playing fields.
As the youngsters at Sutton Park Community Primary School returned to classes on Tuesday, they discovered the remains of what appeared to be a spaceship, surrounded by military and police personnel.
A police CCTV van was monitoring the taped-off area and in assembly children were told Martians had crashed at the Greatfield Road site during the night. The Shuttle also attended to “report on the incident”.
The stunt was planned by school staff and Vanessa Halford, West Mercia Police’s Wyre Forest youth inclusion officer, to help pupils imp-rove their writing skills by describing what they saw in a witness statement.
Headteacher Marie Buck-land said: “We wanted to liven up our curriculum and give it a consistent approach across the school, which is why all year groups are involved in this.
“It was very dramatic, which is what we wanted. The children were quite shocked and excited and parents played along with it so there was a lot of excitement and eagerness to come back to school.
“We have seen some really good descriptive stuff from the children and they came up with theories and that has come across in their writing. It is a real-life situation which has motivated the children.”
Ms Halford added: “When we came into school a lot of children said they had seen flashing lights and heard noises during the night.
“The school asked us if we could help with the activity. I thought we could show pupils what a police witness statement looks like. We have to be very descriptive in what we write in witness statements because they can help us find out what happened, who was involved and they can lead to somebody being arrested.”
The activity followed a recent recommendation by Ofsted to the school that pupils improve the quality of their writing.
Ofsted rated the school as “good” in the report, which saw it taken out of special measures.
