Visiting the Warning Zone Life Skills Centre
Here at Bott, we’re passionate about supporting and working with charities and organisations from around the local area of our various sites.
Recently, one of the team from our Ashby HQ paid a visit to Warning Zone Life Skills Centre in Leicester to see first-hand the fantastic work they do with young people regarding safety.
After recently starting at Bott, I was eager to get to know more about the charities and organisations the business supports around Ashby and the wider Leicestershire area. As one of our current charities of the year, Warning Zone is a place I was unaware of before joining the company. So, I was delighted to arrange a visit to the centre with Richard Grudgings, the charity’s Operations Manager.
Based in Leicester city centre, Warning Zone is a Life Skills Centre and children’s safeguarding charity which has been running for around 12 years. Their aim is to teach children, specifically in Year 6 at School (10 – 11 year olds), about safety and behaviour in the modern world. This is considered a critical age in a child’s development, as they make the transition from Primary to Secondary School. Something else I was unaware of before my visit, is that you can receive a criminal record from the age of 10! This only reinforces the need to teach young people about various dangers and the possible consequences of their actions.
The centre is always busy with school visits and workshops, and I was able to join an afternoon tour with a local school, seeing 1st hand how the staff deliver a tour and engage with the children. All the tour guides are volunteers, who do an incredible job of sharing their knowledge and delivering a great tour that keeps the children interested and engaged right the way through. Our tour guide was the fantastic Bleddyn Jones, who is somewhat of a local hero around the area, as a previous Leicester Tigers player, and now commentates on all their games for BBC Radio Leicester!
Our afternoon tour lasted around 2 hours and consisted of exploring the 8 safety zones; Electricity & Building Sites, Alcohol & Anti-Social Behaviour, Personal Safety, Arson and Criminal Damage, Risks around Water, Road Safety, Risk around Railways, and Fire Risk in the Home. The centre also has an e-safety zone, which I was shown before the tour began. This is a brilliant space that creatively teaches children about online safety and the dangers of things such as cyber bullying, set out as a ‘fake fairground’.
There were so many highlights from the tour, as every zone has a unique feature and an element of interactivity that makes each stage memorable and educational. I particularly liked how the centre has evolved to reflect important issues facing young people today. The e-safety zone is only 3 years old and very clearly communicates the message of internet safety, there’s references to the growing impact of peer pressure, and a wonderfully creative yet hard hitting section focusing on knife crime. It’s these subtle yet effective ‘shock tactics’ that gets the message to hit home, and we are told stories of real people and real consequences throughout the tour.
The road safety zone was another standout section. At Bott, we take pride in promoting vehicle safety and safety on the roads, so it was great to see how Warning Zone communicated road safety awareness to the children. Again focusing on relevant aspects that affect young people, we looked at how headphones impact awareness, staying safe on your journey to school and the vast amount of hazards that can arise on the road. As Warning Zone is very much focused on interactive learning, part of this zone included strapping yourself into a real 7 seater car and taking a virtual journey filled with hazards!
My visit to Warning Zone was a great experience, which made me feel proud of the fact Bott supports and donates to such a wonderful charity that delivers an important message. It’s great that Bott is recognised as an official sponsor, and this is a relationship that will definitely continue to blossom in the future.
If you want to learn more about Warning Zone and the work they do, please visit https://www.warningzone.org.uk/
Find out more about Bott’s community support work here.