Safety first for young road officers
136 Primary 5 and 6 pupils from 58 Highland schools have successfully completed their induction to become Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSO’s) and will now be busy highlighting road safety issues within their schools.
The Induction Day, held at Smithton Free Church in Inverness, was organised by The Highland Council’s Road Safety Team in partnership with Northern Constabulary, Bear Scotland, Northern Safety Camera Partnership, Road Safety Scotland and Cycling Scotland.
The aim of the JRSO scheme is to encourage children to highlight road safety issues within their schools. This can be done through raising awareness among other pupils, teachers and the school community, with the assistant of adult helpers and the Council’s Road Safety team.. Key roles include maintaining a road safety notice board, deliver presentations to classes and assemblies, getting involved in drawing up school travel plans, and running road safety competitions within their school.
The Induction Day event was very interactive with lots of activities giving information and ideas to help the young people get started in their important role as JRSOs. Activities included a road safety magic show, workshops giving ideas on how to promote road safety within schools, information on Highland Council’s walking/cycling to school initiative “Go For it!”, an introduction to meet the Early Years Road Safety character ‘Ziggy’, a demonstration on bike security and the chance to see inside a speed camera van.
The children were joined by 10 adult co-ordinators who will support them in their roles to plan assemblies, design notice boards, run competitions and undertake other road safety related activities throughout their year in office.
The Highland Council’s Road Safety Officer Lisa said: “The aim of the JRSO scheme is to empower children so they can highlight road safety issues within their school. The young people do a terrific job in promoting and raising the awareness of road safety in their schools that can only help to save lives. The interactive events that were running during the day were a great way to build the children’s confidence and give them, as well as the 10 adult helpers who came along, lots of information and ideas to help them get started with their duties and to come up with creative ways to teach road safety to their fellow pupils. I would like to thank them all for their commitment to improving safety on the roads around their schools.”
Resources for the JRSO scheme are provided by Road Safety Scotland. Two other Induction Days in the Highlands have been held in Caithness and Fort William so in total throughout Highland Primary Schools there are 383 JRSOs. All of them will be able to post information and pictures of all the things they do on a dedicated web site www.jrso.com
ENDS