Both of the five year old classes recently made their annual trip to the local police station. This trip directly relates to our current classroom theme of transport and our ongoing learning about the importance of personal safety. Interestingly, by turning the pedestrian’s traditional role on its head, students have learnt about road safety in a particularly active way.
On this special day, children are no longer waiting at the zebra crossing to cross the road as they usually do, they are offered the chance to become drivers, taking go-carts around a special miniature circuit, guided by the local traffic police. The police award each child with his own personal driving license and warn that they must take care to keep all of their ten points through careful driving. In this way, the children experience what it is like to be behind the wheel and understand how pedestrians and drivers share common spaces. They learn to appreciate road traffic signals and rules of the road (who has to give way to who, what side of the road we travel on, where to be prepared for traffic and where to cross safely).
Of course, all of our children managed to keep a clean license and returned to school, as better pedestrians and hopefully as better future drivers!
