Safeguarding Blog Curriculum Blog

Road Safety Week 2020

Road Safety Week aims to inspire thousands of schools, organisations and communities to take action on road safety and promote life-saving messages during the Week and beyond. It also provides a focal point for professionals working in road safety to boost awareness and engagement in their work. The theme for 2020 is NO NEED TO SPEED. You can find out more about why we chose this theme and why speed matters when it comes to road safety here.

You can base your activities on our theme, or choose to focus on any other road safety issue that's important in your area.

Slower traffic can help make places feel more welcoming for the people who live, work and play in them. This can mean more people choosing to walk and cycle to get around and more people interacting with each other on the street, creating fitter, healthier and happier communities. This Road Safety Week, we want everyone to learn that there is No Need to Speed and to find out just why speed matters for safe and healthy journeys.

  • Individuals can learn what a safe speed is, speak with families and friends who may travel too fast and choose technologies, or modes, which help keep people safe.
  • Schools can help young people learn how the streets around their homes and schools can have safer speeds and shout out for change.
  • Organisations can step up their policies and procedures to ensure that their employees travel at safe speeds and understand why this is so important.
  • Emergency service professionals can enforce speed limits and share their experiences of the impact of travelling too fast.
  • Decision-makers can consider what changes can be made to our road environment to encourage safe speeds and healthy streets.

There are new online resources for educators for 2020, free to all those who register using this online form. The free online action pack includes more advice, ideas and resources, including lesson plans, assembly presentations, activity sheets and fact sheets linked to the 2020 theme of NO NEED TO SPEED.

Brake, the road safety charity have produced a guide for educators on teaching road safety. 

Thinking skills for Life from LGfL in partnership with Axis education includes a section on travel and transport, there are 3 categories of worksheets for each activity which require different levels of literacy, thinking and comprehension skills. This includes worksheets which use Widgit symbols to support understanding for many young people with SEND, EAL and lower literacy levels.

Busy things have a template to help children create a poster on how to stay safe on the roads, children could also use JIT or J25 to create either an animation or a poster to encourage parents to speed down, save lives. They could also write to their local council and ask what is being done in their areas to encourage people to speed down and save lives.  Using J2data children could create data on traffic in their local area around schools and use this to encourage more people to walk to school.

RoSPA has also got a range of resources on their website for educators to use including teacher guides, workbooks and travel training for KS3 and KS4. Think from the Department of Transport have resources for students aged 3-6, 7-12 and 13-16 both feature sections for teachers, pupils and parents.

STARS is TfL’s accreditation scheme for London schools and nurseries. STARS inspires young Londoners to travel to school sustainably, actively, responsibly and safely by championing walking, scooting and cycling. STARS supports pupils’ wellbeing, helps to reduce congestion at the school gates and improve road safety and air quality. STARS is open to all London schools and nurseries. To take part in the scheme, you first need to create a STARS Online account. This will put you in touch with your local borough officer who will support you throughout the accreditation process, help you create a School Travel Plan (STP) and select the most suitable activities for your school to address your travel issues and reach your active travel targets. A great resource to use during Road Safety Week.

Please let us know what you are doing for the week, you can share via our Twitter and Facebook pages, or using the hashtag #RoadSafetyWeek

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