A fresh school idea

AUSTRALIAN Minister for the Environment and Heritage Senator Ian Campbell is encouraging primary school children, their parents and carers to walk to school on national walk safely to school day this Friday.

One of the biggest contributors to common air pollutants is the motor vehicle, with private cars contributing about 16 % of greenhouse gases in Australia, he said.

Senator Campbell said cars, traffic congestion, parent frustration, pollution and children made an? unhealthy mix.

Road safety is an important message at any time of the year, but with Walk Safely To School Day this Friday Oak Flats Public School decided to emphasize to students just what a prominent issue it is.

Principal Greg Wells said all classes would complete some form of road safety activity this week.

Year 1 and year 6 students joined forces in a buddy system to work on the subject. They were given maps of the Oak Flats area and had to note down the roads on which they travelled to school. If they walked the students had to note the potential hazards along the way such as main roads, railway crossings and traffic lights.

Students decorated the playground with chalk drawings of their maps, laying down appropriate street signs and traffic lights.

This exercise proved a hit with the classes. They worked in tandem, a younger students and an older counterpart, to plot the safest way to school.

This activity incorporates maths, student wellbeing, pastoral care as well as the concept of using the road safely, said Mr Wells.

Other activities carried out through the week include focussed road safety lessons and class discussions.

For parents Oak Flats Public School has been printing statistics and valuable information on walking safely to school in their newsletter.

Mr Wells said the main focus of the week was in teaching children how to be safe users of the road.

Any accident is one too many, he said.