As a stand alone project with Police officers working alongside pupils in the classroom

Dilemma: Grasser? can be run as a stand alone project, which means it can run at a the time to suit you and your pupils. However, to really enhance and add an extra dimension of excitement and realism to Dilemma: Grasser?, invite your local community liaison officer in to take part.

The police officer or officers can work in groups with the children, or be available as 'in role' community liaison officer, taking on the part of the community liaison officer involved with Seyster High School.

First purchase the project and receive your pupil username and password. When your pupils type in their pupil username and password the message stream will begin.

You will need one Internet-linked Computer with a working printer attached.

The class should be divided up into groups of about 4. Each group will need a copy of the map and the briefing sheet before beginning the message stream.

When the first message arrives, it will need to be printed out so that each group has a copy. Click 'File' then 'Print' and type in the number of groups into the number of copies box. Then choose 'OK'.

You may wish to assign a 'technician' who will take on the printing of the messages, but each group should send their 'communication officer' to collect the information.

Alternatively, you may have more than one Internet-linked computer with printers. In this case, you may wish to assign each group to their own computer to receive messages and interrogate the database during the project. It is still advisable to instruct one member of the group to be responsible for reading the information out aloud - or some pupils may miss out on the information.

As pupils receive messages, the story behind Dilemma: Grasser? will begin to unfold. The pupils will learn about the characters and the events of the situation. At first messages will arrive at 1 minute intervals, after 10 messages the messages arrive every 2 minutes. The message stream lasts 1 hour.

Pupils work in role as the Headteacher of Seyster High School. They receive reports of a vandalised bus shelter and pupils from the School are involved.

As Headteacher the pupils must:

• Find out who the pupils involved are
• Find out the full story of what really happened
• Deal with the pupils involved
• Deal with the community liaison officer
• Deal with the local press
• Deal with the pupils' parents
• Deal with the other members of staff and general public

During the message stream, the pupils need to interrogate the school database in order to discover which pupils were at the 'crime scene' and read their school reports to find out more about their characters.

Instructions for on using the database can be found here.

The annotated script which gives step-by-step details of what the pupils should be doing as they receive messages can be found here. (Teacher password required)

Concluding the activity

At the end of the message stream the pupils should produce a presentation to show how the Headteacher of Seyster High School deals with the situation.

This could be:

A playlet or drama scene, involving as many characters as possible, but at the very least the Headteacher, the Police Officer, Jo Wheeler and Vicky and Alice (if possible include Jo's Mum and even the parents of the other pupils involved).

A letter from the Headteacher to the Community Liaison Officer to explain what really happened and how the Headteacher would like to deal with the situation. Remember that the police are already involved, although the Headteacher could try and persuade the police to take other matters into consideration.

A press release for the local paper who are hot on the trails of incidents like this, and may want to show the school in a bad light.

There are a variety extension activities as follow-up work to Dilemma: Grasser?

As you have a Police Officer in school you may also wish to:

Set up a question and answer session allowing pupils the opportunity opportunities to ask the Community Liaison Officer how he/she they would have dealt with this situation and what might the response to the letter might be?

Ask the Police Officer to talk (without disclosing personal information) about some of his or her experiences and ask pupils to think about how they would deal with these situations.

There are further variations and activities created specially for you to undertake involving the your police officer to work with in the extensions section.