City of Belmont Provides Safety Education

The City of Belmont has once again provided an opportunity for Primary Schools within the City of Belmont to have their students attend an excursion at Constable Care Safety School to educate local children how to safely navigate tricky situations as cyclists, pedestrians and public transport users. The City generously cover the cost of both the excursion and the Horizons West bus.

Crawford from the City made it extremely straight forward to book the excursion and bus and Linda from Safety School was very accomodating with our preferred booking dates. We decided to take our Yr4 and Yr5 classes this year. Once the details were locked in all we had to do was send out permission slips and wait for the big day, while Crawford took care of the rest.

Unfortunately the forecast was looking foreboding with a 100% chance of 15-25mm of rain forecast for our special day. On Thursday afternoon a last minute communication was put out to families for students to pack wet weather gear.

Once the students arrived they were given an opportunity to run free around the Safety School physical environment to help familiarise themselves with the various traffic signs and shake out some of that pent up energy. After the run around, the students were brought back into the classroom for some presentations about road safety.

The photo below shows a presentation of how to safely wear a seatbelt. The students were advised that the safe height to move from a booster seat to an adult seat is 145cm. This took many students by surprise!

After the presentations, the group was split into two groups - cyclists and pedestrians. The cyclists were let loose into the physical environment to learn to use the traffic signs while the pedestrians stayed indoors and played educational games.

Parent helpers, staff and volunteers assisted students at each of the different traffic conditions, ensuring they fully understood how and when to slow down and look, give way or stop. Just as the cyclists were getting used to using the rules of the road to keep themselves and their friends safe, the pedestrians were let loose into the environment to make it more challenging to keep focus and stay safe.

After morning tea, the groups swapped over, and again, just as the cyclists were getting the hang of the environment, the pedestrians delighted in using the crosswalks to challenge the focus of their friends.

Luckily for the whole time we were at Safety School, we only had the smallest sprinkle of rain and the students were able to enjoy the full experience of the environment.

We'd like to thank the City of Belmont for funding this initiative, particularly to Crawford for his efforts, and to all the wonderful staff and volunteers at the Safety School for creating a fabulous experience for our students. I am sure that each and every student has come away from the excursion with more confidence and knowledge to safely navigate the real world roads.