Road Safety Advice For Children

Road safety education for young and older children is as important today as it was when we first saw the Green Cross Code man teaching kids how to 'Stop, Look and Listen' when crossing the road and the dangers of stepping into the road from between parked vehicles.

The web provides teachers and parents with valuable teaching resources to ensure that kids understand the hazards of the highway and cycling. Interactive games, quizzes, fun graphics and informative downloadable PDF booklets and guides are free for home or the classroom.

The successful 'Hedgehog Campaign' has now been replaced with 'Tales Of The Road' which cleverly uses contemporary styles and themes to teach road and cycle safety to children. Interactive PC based games are certainly a great teaching resource for the 'on-line generation'; backed up with fun printer friendly worksheets and quizzes we can ensure our child pedestrians and cyclists are equipped for all the hazards and dangers that our cities, towns, villages and countryside may present them with.

	The distinctive Tales of the Road animated characters from UK TV adverts have their own road safety website that's free for children to learn about the Green Cross Code, zebra crossings, etc., and street dangers like crossing between parked vehicles. There are on-line interactive games (like 'Stop, Look & Listen') that bring the dangers of the highway to life and cycling safety pages are imminent. Colourful and modern teachers' resources in PDF format are downloadable for road safety lessons plus there's a 'Road Safety Matters' printable PDF guide for parents of children aged 7-11 years which includes guidance on cycle safety. There's neat wallpaper to download too and a free activity pack with colouring pages and games.

	Renault's excellent Safety Matters road safety education website is aimed at kids around 7-11 years old and is arranged into sections for children, parents and teachers. It's all free and curriculum friendly with a mix of interactive resources and online games with varying difficulty levels to suit most abilities. Try on-line games like Spot the Difference, Safety First or Town and Country Hazards. Teachers and parents benefit from key facts and figures and cross-curriculum teaching aids like lesson plans, traffic survey sheets and worksheets including word searches and street dangers on country, town or city roads.

	Not just amazing cars but an amazing website too. The impressive BMW Education Site is the home of Safe on the Street which is a road safety education resource aimed at children aged around 7-11 years old. Through fun and engaging activities, quizzes, puzzles, word games, etc., kids quickly and easily learn valuable road safety lessons. BMW's Cool Wayz resource is aimed at 9-14 year olds and is designed to help young people make sensible choices about personal safety and travel safety by answering questions like 'What is the safest way to walk to school?' and 'What should I do if I lose my bus fare?'.

	The very reflective 3M know about Child Road Safety and their free website has sections for pupils, teachers and parents about being safe and learning the rules of the road. Along with two on-line road safety games (7-9 years and 10-11 years) there's a quiz, science facts (e.g. information on hi-vis reflective clothing) and instructions on how kids can cycle safely. There are educational film clips too. Great for learning life skills at home or school.

	Skooter The Cat has plenty to say about road safety education for young children. In his colourful KidZone there are plenty of interactive on-line games including word searches and 'Spot The Difference' to help kids learn how to be safe around vehicles and how to cycle safely too. (Includes Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 categories). TeenZone is aimed at teenagers who need to understand the dangers of being distracted by mobile phones, iPods and MP3 players when they are crossing roads. There's a reminder too about the safest places to cross roads like zebra crossings, controlled crossings and footbridges.

	The award winning Children's Traffic Club is for pre-school and nursery kids around 3-4 years old. Road safety advice becomes all fun and games on this colourful site where small children can sing along, do on-line jigsaws or colour a zebra crossing on-line to learn about hazards and dangers; there are printer friendly colouring activities to print out too. Facts, figures and statistics about the number of children killed or seriously injured on our roads is a reminder of how important road safety education is. For a small cost it's also possible to receive six 'traffic club' books with stickers, activities and colouring pages.

	Packed full of free stuff, ROSPA (or more properly the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) have numerous downloadable/printable resources for parents, schools and teachers to easily incorporate road safety education into school activities and lessons. Many can adapt to various children's age groups (whether young or old) and many are compliant with national curriculum areas. From songs for a themed school assembly to fact sheets and resources for Key Stages 2, 3 and 4 there are plenty of booklets and pamphlets that are free to download. ROSPA's website is an excellent starting point for teaching road safety to children and helping them manage risk, street dangers and cycling safety.