Creative event at nuclear power station helps teach children to stay safe

Winners and runners-up from Hartlepool from the Crucial Crew event, received their prizes from Simon Parsons Hartlepool Power Station Director EDF Energy, at a ceremony hekd at the Baltic Suite, Hartleppol Maritime Experience.

Crucial Crew, an annual multi-agency event that teaches children how to stay safe through a series of practical workshops, took place at EDF Energy’s Hartlepool Power Station and was attended by Year 6 pupils from schools across the town.

Following the event, pupils were invited to enter a competition to design a postcard depicting safety messages they had learned.

Over 900 entries were received from 22 primary schools, a winner and runner-up was selected from each school and an overall town winner - Ellen Bradley, 11, from St Cuthbert’s Primary School- was then chosen along with an overall runner-up - Charlotte Scott, 10, from Throston Primary School.

Ellen received the EDF Energy Trophy while Charlotte received the Bill Wilson Memorial Shield. Each school winner and runner-up received a gift voucher, while the overall winner and runner-up also each received a gift voucher along with complimentary day passes to Beamish Museum.

All pupils received their prizes at a ceremony at Hartlepool’s Maritime Experience.

Joanne Andrews, Hartlepool Borough Council’s child injury prevention co-ordinator, said: “It is important that youngsters remember the lessons learned during Crucial Crew so that they are able to put them into practice in their every day lives.

“The postcard competition aims to focus their minds on what they learned so that the knowledge stays with them for a long time to come.”

The artwork produced by the children is on display at Hartlepool Central Library and will remain there until January 25.

Simon Parsons, Station Director at Hartlepool Power Station, said: “The schools and their pupils are very creative with the postcards they make after the event, and it is obvious from the entries I have seen that many of the safety messages Crucial Crew shares during the sessions are taken on board.”