Child Safety Week is an annual event run by Child Accident Prevention Trust (CAPT) to raise awareness of the risks of child accidents and how they can be prevented. This year's Child Safety Week runs from Monday 3rd June to Sunday 9th June 2019.
The theme is Family life today: where's the risk?
They are highlighting the new dangers facing families today from our modern lifestyles and are offering simple solutions to keep children safe.
CAPT provide a range of resources to help practitioners run local activities and events. You can download the free action pack which includes tips, advice, activities, competitions and quizzes as well as information about some of the most common causes of child accidents and how to prevent them.
An example of one of the resources included:
You could start the week by asking your pupils to discuss their top tips for keeping children safe around the following topics (links to the action pack from CAPT are included):
Then, there are many ways you can delve further into the theme 'Family life today: where's the risk?' with LGfL resources. Following a discussion about the possible dangers and risks children may be exposed to, pupils could design posters/booklets to highlight ways to keep safe and avoid potential dangers/hazards around the home. These information booklets/posters could be designed and produced in either BusyThings or JIT& J2e5 in the J2Toolsuite. (Many of the topics above, lend themselves to this type of activity; there are templates for road safety posters in Busy Things too).
Also in Busy Things there is 'Busy Oven’. This simulates different oven temperatures and cooking times to explore the effects these have on different foods; you could discuss the importance of children standing away from ovens, saucepans on the hob and kettles to avoid burns and scalds in addition to ensuring food is prepared in a safe manner.
Perhaps your pupils will have the opportunity to prepare cooked food as part of the topic and learning how to keep safe in the kitchen and avoid burns. They can record the recipes they have followed and particulary highlight any safety aspects/advice. (There are four ready-made templates children can choose from where they can describe a recipe using simple image sequencing or to write a detailed description).
You could also explore Significant People and Events which uses augmented reality and interactive 3D to explore important events and people and investigates their impact on history; included in the series is Florence Nightingale and her nursing endeavours during the Crimean War and the Great Plague of London. You could explore the role of today's nurses in keeping children safe, explore diseases from the past and discuss the importance of medicines and vaccines in preventing and combatting modern day illnesses and diseases.
Search and Rescue with HM Coastguard
This resource was developed predominantly for real life maths lessons, however, it features exclusive footage of real-life rescues at sea, lifeboat and helicopter searches, and rescue coordination at the National Maritime Operations Centre. You could therefore discuss the importance of staying safe when near water, ways to prevent drowning and explore the work of the HM Coastguards.
Growing up around the World aims to help UK children understand the realities of childhood in differnt contexts. Strikingly, many of the struggles and challenges the children encounter are universal, from the UK to South Africa to India. Your students could compare their lives with those of children being brought up around the world and dicuss what additional hazards they might face as a result of where they are living and growing up.
Exploring the theme 'Family life today: where's the risk?' further, you could discuss how to develop a healthy mind and mental attitude. The Healthy Minds resource was produced in partnership with the leading mental health charity for young people - Young Minds. It features a range of teacher led activities involving group work promoting self-reflection and video content with supporting activities. The main activities are designed for use with learners in upper KS2, KS3 and KS4, with some resources are designed for staff and/or for parents.
We hope that whatever you do for Child Safety Week, your pupils understanding of how to lead safer lives is further developed. Please remember if you do use any LGfL content to inspire your students for this week or in general, do let us know by posting on LGfL’s Twitter or Facebook.