Crime Scene Investigations

To truly ignite the Year 5s learning about solving crimes, they were very lucky to have the real deal come to visit them in school last week. This opportunity to meet people who fight crimes on a daily basis brought real-life meaning to their learning and understanding of the Police and Detectives as professions. The Royal Military Police came into school under the cover of early morning darkness to stage a crime scene.

The groups had different aspects of crime solving explained to them, leading to them gathering sufficient evidence to ‘arrest’ one of a number of ‘criminals’ from among the staff - the crime was a ‘stolen’ projector!

The evidence they needed to investigate included a fingerprint on the classroom door handle, a handprint on the glass in the classroom door and another in the classroom window, a muddy footprint in the classroom and at the back of the classroom and a handwritten note left by the perpetrator.

Having been given a list of possible culprits, each group worked towards finding the culprit by taking handwriting samples and asking pertinent questions of the suspects.
The children made an arrest, handcuffing Miss Rose, Mr Mtembei, Mr Evance, Miss Naomi and Mrs Gould. It was such fun to see the teachers being escorted by pupils and Police. It came as quite a surprise to the rest of the school who were incredibly curious about what had been happening in the Year 5 block.

All other children in the school were also given the chance to visit the Police to; see their equipment; try out fingerprinting; set off and hear the vehicle siren; learn about self-defence; and try on their clothing. Many thanks are extended to the Police Team from BATUK who ran the day for us.

Year 5 thoroughly enjoyed creating their CSI Family Assembly, pooling ideas purposefully to generate drama - leaving some of the teachers quaking in their boots. The supposed rule break of leaving the staffroom microwave in a mess gave them enough sources of evidence to eliminate staff members in several stages, leaving only those with black cars as the final group of suspects. The tense atmosphere was unlike any other assembly, but the assembly ended with plenty of smiles as Year 5 took the opportunity to tell Mrs House that they are thrilled she is going to be the Year 6 teacher in the new school year.

They are extremely grateful to Mr. Letunta (our 911 security guard) for playing his part and Mrs House for being brave enough to come to the stage at the end - leaving everyone with the question, did Mrs House actually leave a mess in the staffroom?