We didn’t have police on standby, but where I grew up in Canada, police would come to school sometimes to give safety presentations. I believe this was done to show the children that “police are a community ally/resource”, at least that’s what I think.
When we were about 13/14 (grade 8), the police came in to give us a presentation about cyber bullying and how they could certainly arrest us if we did something like that, how the internet tracks and records every website we go on to etc…
They then showed us a video of the Columbine shooting and told us that if we ever did anything like that, they would come into the school and “shoot us in the heart” because police are not trained to disarm, they are trained to kill.
Did you have any similar experiences growing up in your school? Particularly if you are from a younger generation though all responses are welcome.
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Not at all.
School is a long time ago for me, but I don’t think I ever saw police in or near the school.
They once showed up to check that nobody had an illegally tuned moped.
around age of 10 we had a lesson about cycling in traffic with police officer, he basically just said now you are old enough to ride alone so here are some rules and traffic signs.
can’t remember anything else
Similar in Finland., their presence is non-existent unless they are giving a presentation on something. Not sure hot it’s nowadays but even that was quite rare.
And of course, if there is disturbance that needs police, they will be there. But that’s really, really, really rare.
I only saw them once; when we had to do a “bicycle test” and got a nice diploma for participating. The guy giving us our diplomas was a police officer. He also rode on some of our bikes (we were around the age of 10) and that was pretty fun. I also realise that this is very Danish (we like bikes).
ETA: so cool to see many other countries do this as well! Bicycles are awesome and I am happy that it is not only Denmark and The Netherlands who utilise this great way of transportation!
We had our cycling safety and traffic rules lessons by a police officer, but that wasn’t on the school grounds, but rather in a special traffic training area where we could cycle around and practice following the signs and the rules.
In primary school they came by once a year, talking about road safety and stuff, basically a “how to move in traffic both on foot and on a bike”-class.
I think in third grade or so they did a bicycle test which had both a theory part and a practical part at the on of which you got a “driving license” for bicycles (just a pice of cardboard with your name and DoB, etc.
In secondary school we had a “guys these things (list things that are cool) are actually illegal and you shouldn’t be doing them”-talk, I don’t think it was actually drugs but other things like tuning your motorcycle (the smallest category is legal form 14 onwards here), online and regular bullying, distributing nudes, etc.
We also had the drugs talk, but that was, I think, in the last year of school, so at 16. They warned us about the health risks, and told us the legal limitations (<X gramms of Weed we’ll have to confiscate but it has 0 legal consequences, X – Y gramms we’ll have to confiscate and you’ll have to pay a fine but there won’t be a record, >Y gramms will result in a conviction and thus a record, any drug other than weed will immediately have consequences); the second part of that talk obviously being the *vastly* more important one in our eyes.
Outside of their education role I don’t think I’ve ever seen a police uniform even near a school house.
The only police involvment i remember were some traffic safety lessons. One regarding walking (how to cross roads safely) in kindergarten or first grade. And one a few years later regarding bicycles.
Also there was some elective week thing, where some of us could visit the police station and have a Q&A with a cop. I, being the 9 year old badass that i was, asked him how many people he shot. And he said he only ever fired a single warning shot in his 30+ year career.
Certainly no cops came threatening to shoot us in the heart (which is oddly specific). Generally we had no police involvment in teenage education.
It pretty much depends on the school to whether decide to allow police forces to present themselves to the students either in school or with the class/classes making a trip to the specific station, or not do that.
Personally only in elementary school such a thing happened to me with my municipality’s local police that presenting their duties and the road rules while making a trip in the area around the school and giving fines to unregularly parked cars.
Never saw a cop in school
Just once, we had a 1h presentation about road safety when I was really young, like 7-8 years old.
I have never seen a police officer on the school ground in czech republic
I think there might have been an assembly once on “drugs bad” from a police officer?
Nobody threatened to shoot us though, our police don’t carry guns
They’d set up camp outside my secondary school sometimes to check for anybody driving without a bike light or to test mopeds to make sure they weren’t modified to be able to go above the legal limit.
I think we got a presentation in primary school once about the consequences of crime but I’m pretty sure that was given by someone from the youth offenders’ organisation (HALT, which deals with petty crimes by kids so they don’t get a criminal record) not by actual police officers. Seeing a police officer in school is generally seriously bad news
No, never saw police officers at school. This would be very weird to see a police officer in uniform at school. Maybe occasionally a police officer in civilian clothing would give a guest college about thing like cyber bullying.
The only thing I remember is when I was at secondary school. We were asked to volunteer for the local riot police for their practice. I didn’t participate however.
We only had police officers at our school for lessons about road safety. I think it was around two or three times during primary school. After then, I can’t remember any police presence.
What I do remember though is, that those road safety lessons came with some pieces of free media (books, casettes etc.) about a friendly dinosaur in a bat costume named “[Batino](https://www.watson.ch/imgdb/709b/Qx,A,0,12,569,409,261,245,46,46/1665703758064907)” who helps kids crossing the road. It was so weird it is stuck with my head forever since.
In Poland the only time I saw a police officer on the school ground is when he was giving a lecture about cycling safety
They came to school to teach us how to bicycle to school and the traffic rules. It was the year we turned 10 since then you are allowed to bicycle to school alone.
They come regularly to my child school, once a year, for safety lessons regarding streets crossings, awareness of parkings etc. They bring their motirbikes, kids like it. It’s always a pair of them, in uniform, and usually a woman cop is one of them.
My understanding is that in higher grades the chats get more serious, for now in preschool&primary it’s mostly get to know them and safety.
Once, when a kid pushed another kid through a window.
I think they visited once a year in grades 1-3 with the panda and it was a whole event (we sang songs about safety in different places), then they sporadically visited to talk to us about drugs or whatever. Then in high school they visited a couple times to say they know there are
underage smokers in our school and if they catch them one more time, they’ll be arrested. Of course, they were lying sacks of manure and/or complete and utter incompetent idiots, because nobody was ever arrested. At least as far as I know.
At primary school we had a couple of visits from the local policeman. Once was to talk about how we shouldn’t get in to a stranger’s car *even if it was cool enough to have electric windows*, which dates this a bit! Mostly I remember him saying “stranger danger” a lot in a very thick Welsh accent.
Another time the police came in to demonstrate how they take finger prints, although I can’t remember why. I was about six at the time, and thought it was very cool that we all had our finger prints taken and got to take the prints home.
When I was in 11th grade we had some guy camping in the woods next to the school (it was a rural area). Someone went up to him asking wtsts up, and the reply was “you’ll know in a couple days…”
School was closed, we were sent home, and a handful of normal uniformed officers went to visit him. Was some former student of the school with psychological issues, was arrested without resistance and brought to some urgent care unit.
Apart from that it was like with the other guys here, police was present during traffic/bike safety events in elementary school, and we had an officer in class explaining his job. Ofc he showed his gun (first ever real life contact with a real weapon for like all of us), and he made it very clear under which circumstances he was allowed to use it. Immediate danger, warning three times, after that he could shoot the legs. No shoot to kill.
I think the cops came to my high school just once (like 15 years ago) because some guy was noticed with a huge knife and nobody from the staff wanted to risk it as he had a pretty bad reputation
I was in a somewhat dodgy high school, not the best neighbourhood
>They then showed us a video of the Columbine shooting and told us that
if we ever did anything like that, they would come into the school and
“shoot us in the heart” because police are not trained to disarm, they
are trained to kill.
​
What the flying fuck. God forbid they had tell you conforting shit like “we will come rescue you”, or give you tips on how to behave, no no, they warn the potential suicidal maniac that would perpetrate this that his death wish would come true.
Grade A safety presentation.
Every now and again they’d pop in to talk to a particular year group, largely consisting of telling them to stay away from needles and report them to the police.
Also when there’s been actual crimes at the school – fires, serious assault, someone’s been caught dealing etc.
There were none. No security guards, either. This is a very north American thing. I remember watching a Youtube video from an American woman living in Switzerland who couldn’t get over the fact that Swiss schools “don’t even have fences around them” and that “anyone can walk in there”. Swiss parents would find it very strange to get upset over something like that. I mean, we want our schools to look like schools, not prisons.
Quite. We have one in ours permanently. We’ve had multiple fights, substance abusers and even a stabbing. There were also those kids who broke into the school and set one of the loos on fire. So yeah. They come pretty frequently.
When I was in school, they’d come once a year and give a lecture on bullying and risk behaviours to year 5 and year 6 students. Other than that, the police have a program called “Escola Segura” (Safe School), which as far as I can tell essentially consists of parking a patrol car outside schools and sitting there all day to make sure nothing happens. That’s about it.
They showed up approximately once a year in primary school (1-6) mainly to talk about traffic safety. They inspected bicycles and helmets, and arranged test tracks where kids could test their biking skills.
In high school, we had a weekly thing where various people came to the school to talk about their jobs/careers. Students were supposed to attend 10 such talks if I remember correctly. One of the speakers was a police officer.
I went to school in Macedonia and have never seen the police there. Although 🇲🇰 is poor and considered to be a ‘developing country’ it doesn’t have high crime rates (not on the streets, the criminals are in the government), we have never had mass shootings or anything similar. So, I guess they felt like there’s no need for police lectures or police in front of the school.
In primary school (ages 4/5 – 11/12) we had a police officer come in for safety chats, stranger danger, etc. and they done road safety with us. He was called PC Johnston, I remember him so clearly!
In high school, we had an in school police officer… for behaviour and crime reasons. Can’t say I had much involvement with them thankfully, but I went to school with actual psychopaths and far too many people I know are in prison for serious crimes. Worst crime being a double murder and a guy from the year below me serving a life sentence for it