Too Young To Die – Road Safety Week

I have a friend who is a Road Safety officer. He has sent me the following which is full of ideas for schools to use next week!
The Road Safety Week is hosted by Brake on behalf of the Department for Transport. Brake are a road collision victim support group who campaign for improved road and vehicle infrastructure and also support the education of school pupils in hazard awareness.
The website link is www.roadsafetyweek.org.uk which then has a link page to resources, facts, hints, tips and advice for educators, communities and road safety professionals.
The theme for this year is Too Young to Die, which in itself is an English lesson in how to use the appropriate spelling of to, too two, etc.
For access to advice and resources there are some other sites that may be of help such as www.dft.gov.uk for the Department for Transport, then click on ‘resources for road safety’ and then’Think Education road safety professionals toolkits’. This is then split into Primary and Secondary education sections. The route to the resources and activities is a bit convoluted but there are a lot of interactive resources which can be used in IT lessons or for background information to road safety projects. There are introduction video’s and the possibility of burning resources to discs for use away from live websites, (for example the rotation of pairs of children to work on a classroom computer).
Another site is RSGB or the Road Safety Great Britain site, a place to contact you local road safety team who will be overjoyed to respond to requests for school activities. Select www.roadsafetygb.org.uk and then click on ‘free resources’ or ‘contacts’ for further information. Their resources are a bit more worthy than those at DfT as they are designed for a long term change of attitude to child safety on the school journey. They may even seem a bit dull in the context of a special week, however all resources will have been tried and tested by Local Authorities before they are listed.
There is another organisation which could help with advice and resources, but who have their own National Safety Week, the Child Accident Prevention Trust or CAPT for short. Just try CAPT on a Google search for access to advice and fact sheets. Their remit is wider than pure road safety but they do get involved in all the important child safety issues and have just produced a policy document for the Government in child development called Making the Link, available at www.makingthelink.net .
One other supporter of note for child safety is the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust, (winners of the 2009 European Road Safety Award). They evolved from an ‘Accident and Emergency’ Hospital in Berkshire, and exist to promote the use of cycle helmets by school children. More information is available from www.bhit.org . They have a Kids Zone with child road safety games and they sell cheap, (but good), cycle helmets. They have a fantastic resource for class sessions or assemblies that involves children attempting smashing eggs in little cycle helmets. (The substitution of a rotten egg can sometimes make the session even more memorable for the children!)

Apologies for the length but there are so many great resources that I didn’t want you to miss out!