Educational Visit May 2022

Educational Visit May 2022

May has brought us both days of glorious sunshine and days of torrential rain!

This month at Shrewsbury Prison we have been delighted to welcome 249 students through our doors ranging from Key Stage 2 to Key Stage 5. St Peters CE Primary School, Stokesay Primary School, and Our Lady Magnificat – St Benedict Catholic Highschool, to name a few, all came to visit us this May.

The children from Stokesay Primary School fortunately timed their visit to the prison perfectly, coinciding with one of the passive search dog training days. The dog handlers from HMP Wrexham were kind enough to talk the students through what it is they do and demonstrate the dogs at work. The students’ found the dog work fascinating and were full of questions for the dog handlers about the dogs and their capabilities. Here at Shrewsbury Prison we are so fortunate to be able to provide such unique experiences that our Educational Visits thoroughly enjoy.

We really do love welcoming Primary Schools, Officer Liz tends to find that Primary School children ask the best and sometimes most insightful questions that keep her on her toes. One student from St Peters Primary School asked her if the prison had ever been bombed during the Second World War. She replied that it was not, but explained how the prison had taken precautions in the event of an air raid and an unknown fact for you all, every prison has terrorist insurance cover, in the event of a terrorist attack. Officer Liz thought this was a brilliant question because of how prisons functioned during the Second World War, and this is not something that is commonly discussed.

Another one of our Officer’s favourite things to do is lock up students for their cell escapes, but we can never be sure who enjoys it the most, the Officers, the teachers or the students. All we do know is that whether they are 8 years old or 18 years old, all our educational groups love being locked up in a cell.