Road safety education in lower schools
Road Safety Education, Training and Publicity
Foreward
More child pedestrians are killed or injured in the U.K. than in most European countries. It takes a number of years before children can cope with traffic on their own.
The Road Safety Team in Bedfordshire is committed to providing a high quality service to schools. To help achieve this and to help meet the aims and objectives required to educate children in the basic skills to stay safe on our increasingly busy road, Road Safety have produced these tutorial notes. The aim of these easy to follow notes is to assist teaching staff and Road Safety Officers to deliver basic road safety education throughout the child's school life.
Bill Brady
Road Safety Education, Training and Publicity Manager
Index
Management of The Passport
Passport for Life
Road Safety Education in School
Stepping out Safely
Tutorial Modules
Useful Names and Addresses
Useful Web Sites
Management of the passport
Once the autumn term has started the management of the Passport for Life becomes the responsibility of the school and in particular the teacher for that year.
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Monitor all road safety initiatives and encourage pupils to stay safe when on or near roads and traffic.
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Increase pupils' knowledge of road safety through work in the curriculum.
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Arrange for Road Safety Officer input.
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On completion of the current academic year sign off the appropriate page in the passport and pass onto next year teacher or school.
Bedfordshire County Council Road Safety
Education, Training and Publicity
County Hall
Cauldwell Street
Bedford MK42 9AP
(01234) 228336
Email: roadsafety@deed.bedfordshire.gov.uk|
Passport for Life
1. Introduction
Passport for Life is unique to Bedfordshire County Council, providing a seamless road safety education programme throughout school life.
The purpose of this initiative is to meet the government target of reducing all road traffic accident casualties by 40%, and child accident casualties by 50% by 2010. The initiative aims to promote, support and encourage a co-ordinated approach to road safety in all schools for all academic years giving each child a passport to travel safely through school, Lower, Middle and Upper. As students complete their school life the passport will be as full as has been the co-operation between road safety and the schools attended, giving students a good knowledge of issues surrounding road safety,
of appropriate attitudes and values. It is concerned with both the present and the future.
2. Strategy
Having laid out the background to this initiative this section develops the approach that Road Safety Education Training and Publicity intends to make. Recognising the need and demand for structured road safety education in school, stressing the need for clear responsible road safety objectives to guide Road Safety Officers and school staff for the benefit of the child.
3. Vision
If we are to reduce the number of casualties on the roads we all need to make a commitment to the safety of all. It is appropriate, however to set a vision for road safety accident reduction, which is very positive and id community based. Which can be achieved by regular progressive education throughout a child's school life.
4. Objectives
Passport for Life provides an overall policy objective and contains road safety measures for encouraging general road safety education in schools and the community wider, at levels appropriate to the age of the child.
To reduce child casualty accidents.
To train young road users to be more aware of their own environment and to take ownership of their own safety whilst travelling on or near the roads.
To create and develop a safe and attractive way of teaching road safety throughout the child's school life.
To provide a seamless road safety education programme throughout school life.
To encourage schools to take a more active roll in road safety education as part of the national curriculum.
5. Policy
Given the objectives above a specific policy has been defined to enable these to be achieved. Central to the development of Passport for Life is the appropriate commitment required by all.
Given the enormity of the task Road Safety Education Training and Publicity will commit to the development of this initiative over the next 4 years focusing on pedestrian and cycle training, general road safety education, sustainable transport and environmental issues, pre-driver education and student driver development. The initiative will be in line with the Government's road safety strategy and casualty reduction targets 2010 Tomorrow's Roads Safer For Everyone.
Road Safety will provide and fund for the scheme, providing a road safety passport book for every child, and wherever possible will out line road safety education, projects and training appropriate to that child's age.
A key issue to the success and management of this initiative is that all schools in Bedfordshire will be wholly committed to this on-going community road safety programme.
There will be on-going monitoring of the scheme in order to provide the most attractive and up to date approach to road safety for young road users.
Responsibility of the schools
As part of the Bedfordshire County Council's Passport for Life road safety programme all schools need to ensure effective road safety education for their pupils, in preparation for their responsibility as pedestrians, cyclists, riders and drivers. There also needs to be regular evaluation of all traffic and road safety teaching.
In partnership with the Road Safety Officer the school need to formulate a road safety and traffic education programme linked into their Curriculum where appropriate.
All teaching could be implemented as part of the school's cross-curriculum work within for example, personal health and social education and citizenship.
Road Safety considers it essential that a member of staff or a governor should have the responsibility for road safety within the curriculum in the school. The responsible person needs to become familiar with relevant publications regarding road safety and traffic education and maintain regular contact with the Road Safety Officer.
Use should be made of the road safety resources made available by Road Safety Education, Training and Publicity and the internet. For the safety of children the school needs to encourage all parents to involve themselves in the road safety work, initiatives and programs their children will be taking part in.
Road safety and traffic education should always encourage pupils to take into account the safety of both themselves and others when making decisions about using the road and other modes of transport.
Look at the curriculum
There is a clear relationship between Road Safety Education and the National Curriculum. The Education Reform Act establishes the legal right of pupils in maintained schools to 'a balanced and broadly based curriculum which:
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Promotes the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical development of pupils at the school and of society and
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Prepares pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life'
The basiccurriculum (the nine core and foundation subjects plus religious education), is not intended to be the whole curriculum. The whole curriculum of a school goes far beyond the formal timetable. It involves a range of policies and practices to promote personal and social development of pupils, to develop positive attitudes and values, and to forge links with the local community.
To fulfil the requirement of the entitlement curriculum and thus meet the needs of the child, the National Curriculum Council has identified cross curricular elements which help to form the breadth of the whole curriculum. It is at this important level that health education and road safety education are identified as well as other elements that influence road safety such as environmental education, citizenship, economics and industrial understanding and careers.
Road safety education in schools
What is road safety education
Safety in the environment is a complicated issue involving all, or some of the following factors:
Attitudes and behaviour
These are the basic factors, which are the cause of almost all road accidents.
Self esteem and valuing others
It is the valuing of oneself and others that leads to a greater awareness of the need for safety.
Valuing safety
The consequences of the undervaluing of safety are very apparent in our society. We need to promote a safety culture in which safety is understood and has a high status.
Risk management
This is concerned with identification and assessment of risk and the development of strategies to avoid, lower or remove risk.
Rules
These are not only the public rules but those personal rules that we construct for ourselves and which shape our behaviour.
Education
This provides the necessary structure to allow all to aquire knowledge and skills, including decision making skills, and the examination and development of appropriate attitudes and values. It is concerned with both the present and the future.
Decision making
This involves public decisions and personal decisions about behaviour.
Engineering
The way in which the environment is constructed can increase, lesson or remove risk.
The weather
In the space of a very short time a change in the weather can transform what was a relatively safe environment into one that is extremely hazardous.
Education in schools should seek to address all these issues, but at the same time should not entail any addition to the curriculum.
Why should we do it?
The road environment plays a large and important part in all our lives,
both as children and adults. Our young people are more likely to die or be injured as a result of an accident on the road than from any other cause.
Under the Education Reform Act (ERA) 1988, every child is entitled to a curriculum which, among other things, 'prepares children for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life'. Road safety education attempts to safeguard our children as they make increasing use of the roads and prepare them for adult life as users, citizens and managers of the environment. Whether we like it or not the road is here to stay and we must therefore protect our future generation using it.
We need to use the whole of the curriculum to meet the needs of our pupils.
Road safety is too important and complex to be addressed through simple messages given a few times a year. Road safety education must:
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provide a real and relevant context for work across the basic subjects of the curriculum
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make a significant contribution to the wider curriculum of the school
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forge links between the school and the community at large - the public services, business and industry
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meeting the needs of pupils in keeping themselves safe, now and in the future should be ongoing throughout a child's life at home and at school
Who needs to be involved
Road safety is a community issue and there is a need for schools to encourage teachers and children to work in partnership with parents and to involve Road Safety Officers, Safer Routes Co-ordinates, School Travel Co-ordinator, governors, police, engineers, health workers and other alliedgroups that have a concern for safety, in order to inform and empower their pupils.
Stepping out safely
A fundamental part of the Passport is Bedfordshire County Councils own Child Pedestrian Training Programme 'Stepping Out Safely' aimed at helping parents to develop their child's skills for coping with traffic on the roads.
Objectives of the programme:
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To reduce child pedestrian accidents.
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To train young pedestrians to be more aware of the road and the traffic on the roads.
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To train young pedestrian to be safer near roads.
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To award a certificate at each level to children who successfully show that they understand the dangers of the road and how they can stay safe.
Parents are given a copy of S.O.S. (Stepping Out Safely) a parents guide as their child starts school. The guide gives safer procedures for making young children and their parents more aware of the dangers of the road.
The first three levels of the programme are: Red for children in Year R, Amber for Children in Year 1 and Green for children in Year 2. For children to reach the correct standard at each level the school will need to know that all children are able to:
Red level:
A parents pack is given to all parents of new children to Year R. The Road Safety Officer will give a talk to the school and Red Level Certificates will be issued to children who attend.
Tell and show the assessor at amber level:
What is Traffic? Cars, buses lorries, vans and motorbikes etc).
What type of traffic goes fast? (Cars, Vans and Buses Etc).
What type of traffic goes slow?(Bikes and milk floats).
What does it mean when traffic is far away? (Distance).
What does it mean when traffic is near?(Close).
Why can holding hands keep them safe and prevent an accident?(Stops Children running ahead or dashing into the road).
Where are the safe places for children to play?(In the garden, park, playground, play areas playing fields or in the house).
Tell and Show The Assessor at Green Level:
Why holding hands is still important to keep them safe near the road? (Prevents the child dashing ahead or into the road).
Why is it important to stop at the kerb before crossing the road even when holding hands with an adult?(Gives you time to look and listen for the traffic).
How do you look and listen?(Look both ways and listen).
What do you do if there is traffic coming?Stand still and let it pass).
What do you do if the road is clear?(Walk across the road in a straight line).
How do you cross the road safely while holding hands with an adult?(Stop at the kerb, look both ways and listen for traffic, if the road is clear walk straight across).
What is the difference between a busy and a quiet road?(A busy road has lots of traffic on it all the time. A quiet road doesn't have much traffic most of the time).
Can you name some of the safer places we can cross busy roads? (Pelican crossing, zebra crossing, pedestrian central refuge, footbridge, subway and a crossing patrol).
Tutorial modules
A road safety resource for Key Stage 2
The following information has been written by teachers and supported by the Department for Transport and Brake, the road safety charity. The site contains lots of interactive pages for Key Stage 2 pupils, and as well as lesson plans for teachers and helpful advice for parents.
www.3Mstreetwise.co.uk|
Useful names and addresses
Road Safety Officer
Road Safety office/Fax No: (01234) 228336
School Crossing Patrols Organisers: (01234) 228618/228710
Other useful contacts
Road Safety ETP
School Travel Plan Co-ordinator
Manager Bill Brady: (01234) 228627
Lorraine O' Gorman: (01234) 228614
Safer Routes To School Co-ordinator
Ann Rowland: (01234) 228344
Road Safety Engineer
Simon Deards: (01234) 228019
Police Schools Liaison Officers
North Beds: PC Elaine Longstaff/ Ian Evans : Tel (01234) 275268
Mid Beds: PC Larry Scott Tel (01234) 842627
South Beds: PC Maria O'Farrel Tel (01234) 843348
Leighton Buzzard: PC Ian Dedman Tel (01234) 843411
School Health Nursing
North Beds: (01234) 792327
Biggleswade: (01767) 312158
Flitwick: (01525) 631219
Dunstable: (01582) 707660