Junior Road Safety Officers

Written with the help of Daisy, Isla, Harrison and Sam.

Intent

As Junior Road Safety Officers, our aim is to make everyone at Birchwood safer; this isn’t just pupils walking to school but all pedestrians and road users.  We also encourage sustainable travel to and from school and hope to increase understanding that walking is not only good for the environment but also good for you, by making you happier and healthier.

Implementation

Children in Years 5 and 6 who are interested in this role must fill in an application form stating who they are, describing their interests and explaining the reasons why they would like the job and what qualities or experience they believe they could bring to the role.  As the Junior Road Safety Scheme is organized by Suffolk County Council Mrs Wainer is sometimes able to share applications with the Senior Road Safety Officers (SRSO).  At Birchwood we have 4 Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSO) and together with Mrs Wainer and Holly (our SRSO) we work towards the gold award planning how best to keep our school community safe and travel sustainably.

Activities completed include:

• Supporting Suffolk’s ‘Be Safe, Be Seen’ campaign through Assemblies
• Taking part in the Sustrans ‘Big Walk and Wheel’ campaign
• Promoting Bikeability and carrying out bike and helmet safety checks
• Teaching children at Birchwood and our local pre-school about safe road crossing through an assembly and workshops
• Keeping the bike/scooter sheds clean and tidy
• Supervising ‘Scooter Fridays’ at playtime and lunchtimes
• Promoting our ‘Park and Stride’ scheme
• Carrying out travel surveys
• Organising our hi-vis vest offer
• Conducting traffic surveys
• Checking parking at the start and end of the school day
• Promoting Suffolk Highways competitions within the school
• Keeping the JRSO noticeboard up to date and information

Impact

The JRSOs have really helped to make Birchwood a safer place for all.  Here are some examples of some of our work and projects:

Our regular travel surveys show that more children are walking, biking or scootering to school and in the 2024 Big walk and Wheel scheme we finished 8th after 14 days of surveying.  Not only is this sustainable travel better for the environment by cutting emissions but it means there is less congestion and therefore danger around our school and we are all more active (which means we are happier and healthier!!).

We have a ‘Park and Stride’ scheme whereby we encourage parents who do drive to school to park locally for free and then walk the last part of the journey and again this keeps the area around our school less congested and polluted.  Our travel surveys show that families do opt to ‘Park and Stride’.

We have taken part in an East Suffolk Council trial for providing school children with a free hi – vis vest and after promoting the trial we handed out over 75 vests, which means that a third of Birchwood pupils now travel to school with bright, reflective clothing.

During Road Safety Awareness week, we like to borrow the SRSOs road kit to demonstrate how to cross a road safely and how to be a safe pedestrian.  We carry out a demonstration in assembly and then hold workshops for all Reception and Key Stage 1 children and at the pre-school.

In July 2024 we were really pleased to gain another GOLD Junior Road Safety Award for Birchwood (our 6th GOLD award)!  Remember – STAY SAFE!

Below are some links to help keep safe.