The precocious preschoolers seated behind their desks in Class 2K at Allman Town Infant School lit up at the sight of a group of adults standing by the classroom door.
The quartet that visited the early childhood institution last Wednesday, the first week of Child Month and Teachers’ Day, are team members from the Police Civilian Oversight Authority (PCOA).
They are introduced to the curious four-year-olds by their educator, Charmaine Henry, who informs them that the adults before them come bearing gifts: colouring books.
The 10-page books are retooled images from the top six winners and participants in the Transforming Our Police Service (TOPS) Secondary School Poster Competition themed, ‘Imaging #AForce4Good’, which the PCOA first held in November 2023 in Area 1 (St James, Westmoreland, Trelawny and Hanover Police Divisions).
The artistic interpretations in-between the book’s pages reflect positive interactions between citizens and law enforcement.
For Andrew Beaumont, senior director of inspections and monitoring at PCOA, the opportunity to present the books showing good relationships with the JCF ‘is very important to begin to cultivate a partnership and participation in security from a child’s view of the police at an early age.’
‘The visuals not only reinforce trust and confidence in the police, but the children are more likely to seek help and give help to the police because they see them as friends and allies,’ Beaumont added.
Elaborating on the rationale behind repurposing the TOPS poster competition’s creative executions, Beaumont said ‘transferring the artwork colouring books breaks down the technical issue of police-citizen partnership in a way that is age-appropriate that children can understand. The colouring book and artwork combination is a basic learning platform that can work to develop literacy and numeracy through numbers, colours and shapes, as the book has a code to suggest what colours to use, in a fun way. It also provides an opportunity for discussion with the children [about] what the artwork represents and allows them to express their own perspectives on police-citizen relationships.’
Grateful for the books’ donation to the children at the 104-year-old inner-city institution, Henry explained their relevance in the teaching process.
‘They are very useful. First of all, for children to identify colours and know which to use for each item they are colouring, so they don’t just randomly select a colour for anything,’ remarked the early childhood educator, who has dedicated the last 25 years of her professional life to the classroom at Allman Town Infant School.
‘For example, in the book, they are talking about the policeman on the first page we are colouring, so our policemen in Jamaica their uniforms have specific colours, so they wouldn’t just take up orange or yellow, because that’s not a part of the uniform, so they would use the correct colours for the uniforms. Colouring is very important. It also helps with fine motor skills,’ the veteran teacher noted.
As for what has kept her in the job for a quarter-century, her answer is straightforward: the children and the community.’
‘I love teaching in general, and the children are loving. I see the need to be here to help motivate and stimulate whatever they already know. These children, even though they are from an inner-city area, some very brilliant children come from this community, and I just love working with them and their parents.’
Following their Allman Town visit, the PCOA team next ventured to Alpha Infant School to share additional colouring books with children of the South Camp Road-located institution.
There, warmly accepting the gifted publications, was educator Andre Barnes, who marks his fourth year at Alpha in September. ‘As a teacher, they [the infants] keep me bubbling, energetic and all over the place,’ Barnes shared about his passion as a guiding light for the young minds.
‘Learning is really fun, and the fact that they come to school and retain what they have learnt the day before, I love that.’
Colouring books, according to Barnes, are helpful in the children’s creativity and overall growth.
‘For example, when they just move from classes 1 to 2, most of them, their fine motor skills are not yet developed to write in the two- or three-line spaces, so when we give them the colouring book in the mornings, it helps build their skill set.’
The colouring book, which originates from the PCOA’s poster competition, is held in tandem with the annually staged TOPS programme, which includes: a competition held in one of five JCF Area Commands; an awards ceremony; a performance review meeting with the JCF hierarchy, where targets for improvement are agreed upon; and a re-inspection to determine if these targets are met.
PCOA Chief Executive Officer Otarah Byfield-Nugent said: ‘We also wanted to find a way to include secondary school students residing in the Area Commands in the programme. Therefore, the poster competition was created to allow our youth the opportunity to express how they feel about the police and what their relationship with citizens should be, through art. It is important to have an understanding of how our young people feel about model policing relationships and reflect that to the wider public.’
This year, the TOPS competition, along with the poster competition, will be held in Area 5, which includes St Thomas, St Andrew North, St Catherine North and St Catherine South Police Divisions. The poster competition is now in its third year.
As part of its Child Month activities, the PCOA Team will visit several infant schools in St Thomas, Trelawny, St Catherine North and Kingston Central divisions to distribute the colouring books.
The original article can be found here.