STONETHROWING
Recently a passenger on the 22 bus into Evington was upset when a stone hit the bus.
She said, “As we passed Crown Hills School playing fields a young school boy ran up to the fence and chucked a stone at the bus hitting the window. It made quite a bang, but luckily did not break the window or worse still hit the driver or a passenger.”
Mrs. B. Green, principal of Crown Hills Community College, has made the following comments about this incident.
“Firstly, let me emphasise that we at the college were appalled by the incident and did our best to investigate it by investing many hours into interviewing numerous students. We asked the two passengers on the bus who came forward to come into the college to look at photographs in the hope that they could identify the culprit, but they both declined.
Members of the Senior Leadership Team visited every tutor room (there are 45) and spent 20 minutes reiterating the college’s expectations about behaviour and the consequences of stone throwing. Subsequently four 12 year old boys were given fixed term exclusions for stone throwing.
We have always had midday supervisors and senior members of staff patrolling the site at lunch time. The senior members of staff wear bright yellow tabards and are highly visible. Staff have now refocused their duties to stop children from playing in the dip at the bottom of the field from where the stone throwing took place.
I do not believe that this type of incident is commonplace but it has happened from time to time and we have always taken it seriously and dealt with the problem.
I hope this reassures people living in the community that we are doing all that we can to ensure the best behaviour from our students.
I would also like to point out that although this incident was disgraceful, I also receive letters from visitors and passers by commenting on how well behaved our students are and how well they play together on the field, especially in the summer.
It is worth noting that there are 1200 students at the college and the vast majority would never dream of behaving in this way but it only takes one to damage a school’s reputation.
I can only, once again, apologise and try to ensure that our staff continue to be as vigilant as possible.”