Primary pupils practise new Road Safety roles
Over 200 primary 6 and 7 pupils from 47 local primary schools will gather at the Culduthel Christian Centre in Inverness on 24 May 2017 to be trained in new roles as Junior Road Safety Officers for their schools.
Depute Leader of The Highland Council, Cllr Alasdair Christie said: “This important training day is ultimately about saving lives. It will allow our senior pupils to be trained in the important role of a Junior Road Safety Officer. This vital role empowers them within their schools not only to share road safety education information to their fellow pupils, but also to encourage pupils to think about and use sustainable travel choices on the school journey, with the aim of having a safe and healthy highland school population.”
The Junior Road Safety Officer (JRSO) programme in Scotland puts children in control of highlighting road safety issues within their own school. A particularly empowering programme, it gives senior primary pupils the opportunity to become JRSOs for a year. Their tasks are:
- to organise a road safety noticeboard,
- deliver safety presentations to classes or assemblies and
- run school road safety competitions.
At the training day (organised by Highland Council’s Road Safety Team) the new JRSO’s will be provided information from a number of organisations to help them undertake their roles within their schools.
Highland Council will provide information on the “Go for it” scheme www.highland.gov.uk/goforit; how to create a noticeboard and run competitions; and “Parksmart” www.highland.gov.uk/srts.
Road Safety Scotland will inform the new JRSOs about their website promotion www.jrso.com and Cycling Scotland will promote ‘Bikeability’.
HITRANS staff will provide information on active and sustainable travel while Breedon Aggregates will inform about HGV blind spot safety for cyclists.
Police Scotland will provide information on brake reaction timers and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service will give a cutting equipment demonstration.
The Northern Safety Camera Partnership will give the JRSO’s a chance to view the inside of their Safety Camera Van. Living Streets will inform about their ‘Walk to School’ promotion and there will be road safety floor games for the JRSOs to take part in.
Scottish Government officials will be providing information on the Road Safety App ‘Klang’ www.klangtheroadhome.com/. Pupils will also attend a magic show presented by ‘Allans’ Magic’ which will provide them with ideas on presentation skills for speaking at school assemblies.
The core resource for the Junior Road Safety Officer programme is its website www.jrso.com, which includes a ‘members only' area specifically for JRSOs.