Road safety in schools

The Road Safety Heroes scheme is designed to bring issues of road safety to schools in a fun and exciting package.

The programme encourages primary school pupils to take part and become Road Safety Heroes themselves. A Road Safety Hero is a role taken up by primary school pupils to help raise road safety awareness and promote road safety issues to everyone in their school and the wider community.

RSH's provide a variety of road safety information to pupils and the school community by holding assemblies, mini-publicity campaigns or running competitions and events.

Road Safety Heroes is computer based to reduce the need for producing paper documents. For every school taking part in the RSH scheme there will be a RSH Co-ordinator, an adult in the school who supports the RSHs in carrying out their duties.

Pupils are invited to apply for the position of RSH by completing an application form. On the form they have to say why they would like the job and what would make them a good RSH.

The nominated teacher or helper should aim to choose one pupil from Year five and another from Year six. However, this is flexible and schools are free to choose pupils to suit their needs.

The applicants may then be asked to attend an interview. The interview panel can be made up of the RSHs who are finishing and a teacher and/or the RSH Co-ordinator. Some schools may also want to involve other pupils by having Assistants or Deputies to form a RSH team.

The scheme is open, free of charge, to any primary school in Northamptonshire. ​It will take a minimum of 2 to 3 hours per week and you will need a minimum of two pupils.

The scheme contains lesson plans based around the National Curriculum to help make it easier for teachers to plan their lessons.

​Contact the Road Safety Team [email protected] to register the school or teacher and a member of the team will visit the school to talk through the set-up procedure.

Follow us on Twitter @RoadSafetyHero

Cycling is an effective sustainable mode of travel to get to school and it’s important that all pupils cycling are made aware of the need for safety when cycling.

Bikeability is ‘cycling proficiency’ for the 21st century, designed to give the next generation the skills and confidence to ride their bikes on today’s roads. It is a national scheme, funded by the Department for Transport and run to The National Cycle Standard Training.

The three Bikeability levels are each designed to help improve children’s cycling skills, no matter what they know already.

Each level takes trainees on a journey from the basics of balance and control, all the way through to planning and making a journey by themselves on busier roads.

Children will typically start Bikeability lessons once they have learnt to ride a bike:

• Level 1 helps new riders to control their bikes
• Level 2 helps to develop on-road skills and is usually tackled by children in Years 5 or 6, before leaving primary school
• Level 3 teaches trainees how to ride in different and more challenging traffic situations - usually completed by children of secondary school age

Bikeability Grant Funding allows the training to be delivered to all areas of the county. Cycle training in Northamptonshire is currently outsourced to a single contractor and is delivered via the Government’s Bikeability scheme.

West and North Northamptonshire Councils offer Bikeability to all schools in the County including independents and youth groups (cubs, scouts, brownies, guides, an so on).

Contributions are required for Level 1 and Level 2 training, which allows additional training places to be delivered in addition to the current grant funding levels.

Level 3 training will continue to be funded in full by within the current allocated Bikeability Grant funding.

If you would like further information regarding Bikeability training please contact us on [email protected] or see The National Cycle Standard Training page for scheme information.

Bikeability training in Northamptonshire is provided by our approved partners Outspoken Training Ltd who can be contacted by telephone on 01223 473820 or by e-mail to [email protected].

Young drivers are disproportionally represented in our collision statistics so 2Fast2Soon was originally launched in 2009. Based on a true event, there is a resulting collision, which is then discussed by the presenter to draw out from the audience what they believe happened and why it all went wrong.

The presentation style is dynamic and allows the audience to take an active part. The aim is not to patronise the students but to involve them by educating through a ‘light hearted’ delivery of a serious message.

A new presentation has been developed in conjunction with our partners in the Northamptonshire Safer Roads Alliance (NSRA) and from April 2022, 2Fast2Soon will be replaced by My Pink Trainers.

Using behavioural change techniques the presentation looks in in detail at how a collision impacts on the parties involved and is followed up by a dynamic interactive session, which looks at the main cause of accidents, how much it costs to get a driving licence, alcohol/drugs + seat belts, strategies on how to deal with feeling uncomfortable in a car and how to protect yourself.

Later in the year, we will also be adding a Spoken Word session, which comprises of student thoughts about collisions/safety in the form of poetry. This can be used as part of the My Pink Trainers session or for schools to use as a discussion tool with students.

The presentation has been developed for Year 12 students who are just starting out on the journey of becoming a driver and are often a passenger in vehicles with their peer group.

Contact the Road Safety Team [email protected] for further information and to access this presentation.

The presentation has evolved for Year 13 students, many of who have passed their driving test.

It looks at attitudes to driving, how to lose your licence, penalties, alcohol/drugs, anti-social driving and how to help yourself.

Contact the Road Safety Team [email protected] for further information and to access this presentation.