North Yorkshire Police have launched a new, interactive, online, urban-adventure game aimed at Year 6 primary school children, to teach them important safety advice, but in a fun and relevant way.
Developed by York based digital agency Plump, the game has been designed to support and reinforce the learning children take away from attending the Crucial Crew safety workshops.
Crucial Crew workshops have been delivered to Year 6 pupils across the region for more than 20 years. The sessions are designed to deliver key personal safety messages to children, to support them as they make the transition to secondary school and beyond into adulthood.
It’s estimated that over the years, more than 200,000 children from all across the region have received potential life saving safety advice through the workshops. In 2016, a child who attended one of the Leeming Bar sessions put the fire safety lessons she learnt into use, when she raised the alarm and saved her own family from a house fire.
The sessions are run by the North Yorkshire Police Youth Team, with the support and assistance of partner agencies, such as the North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue service, Yorkshire Ambulance Service, Northern Powergrid and Northern Gas Networks and many more.
The workshops deliver essential safety messages such as road, water, and electrical safety and covers vital skills such as how to make an emergency phone call and which emergency service to ask for, all in a fun and informative setting.
The online game has been designed to allow children to put all these skills into practice, as they navigate through a number of settings and challenging scenarios ranging from water rescues to online safety and make key choices on how to respond in emergency situations.
Characters have been designed to be colourful and engaging and the tone of the game has been written to communicate with children on their level.
North Yorkshire Police Youth Officer Paul Stephenson said:
We’re thrilled with the game and the opportunity to bring Crucial Crew through on a digital platform that young people can so easily access and engage with at any time.
The beauty of the online solution is that kids can play the game in school or at home, have fun and keep some vital lessons at the forefront of their minds, whilst teachers and parents can support them, knowing they are playing a game which is safe, educational and supports key elements of the PHSE curriculum.
We hope they have loads of fun and the game helps equip the kids with the skills to make that step in to the big wide world a bit less daunting.
Rob Colley, Director at Plump said
North Yorkshire Police had ambitious plans to freshen up their learning materials aimed at Year 6 kids.
We came up with a ‘choose your own adventure’ game, packed with tricky real-world scenarios for the young players to explore and learn from in a fun, hands-on way.
We’re really proud of what we’ve achieved together and we hope it makes a difference to youngsters just starting to discover their own way in the world.
The game is available now and can be played at www.crucial-crew.org.uk and there is more information and a lesson plan for teachers avaiable on the North Yorkshire Police website – www.northyorkshire.police.uk/staying-safe/crucial-crew/
