On the afternoon of 27th January we were delighted to welcome into school Loudmouth Theatre in Education company.

Loudmouth delivered a PSHE session “Working for Marcus” to our Year 11 students which focused on Child Exploitation, Sexual Exploitation, County Lines, Grooming and Knife crime. The aim of “Working for Marcus” is to make young people aware of the signs of grooming, develop empathy for its victims and be aware of the impact of child exploitation. Students learned how perpetrators can be any gender, ethnicity or age and set out to target a person’s vulnerability and they also gained some knowledge of the laws surrounding coercive and controlling behaviour.

The session comprised a piece of theatre followed by a very lively question and answer session, picking up points raised in the play.

Feedback from the students after the event indicated that the session had been extremely well received and had given the students much food for thought arising from the issues addressed.

We are very grateful to the office of the Police Crime Commissioner for funding this very worthwhile event and also to the Stratford District Council for facilitating it. Our thanks also go to the Youth Justice Service for making one of their representatives available to join us.