Pupils on song with road safety with STEP's "Journey to School" project

Over 880 primary schools in Northern Ireland received copies of a new road safety song CD and songbook during the past few weeks. The songs are an important initiative to target foundation and key stage 1 pupils with the messages of road safety with an aim to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities, particularly of children, on our roads in Northern Ireland. It is part of a project “Journey to School III” delivered by the Dungannon based community organisation, STEP (South Tyrone Empowerment programme) on behalf of DOE Road Safety Grants administered by the Community Transport Association. There have been some postal issues for some schools with some of the packs held in delivery offices requiring an extra 1p postage according to Royal Mail. Schools have been contacted and offered a reimbursement for this penny and the one pound administration charge by STEP.

Having delivered two previous projects as part of this grant scheme STEP felt that it was important to develop the initial project concept and reach as many children as possible. The project was co-ordinated by Roisin McAliskey, STEP Marketing & Communications Manager, she continues: “This project has been developed from our Journey to School project in 2012 when we produced a children’s story book “Journey to School – What are the rules?” illustrating the different ways children travel to school and how they can do that safely. This was delivered in the Dungannon & South Tyrone Borough council area and the book was translated into four other languages. The following year we were successful in attaining the grant again and developed the two character in the first book putting them in different road safety scenarios in a new book “Road Safety Rules – what should you choose?”, allowing children to make choices on the safest options. Copies of this book were translated and sent to all the primary schools in Northern Ireland along with a Teaching Resource Pack that had over twenty exercises for teachers to use with pupils in the classroom – all with road safety learning messages but in subject areas of art, literacy, numeracy etc.”

This latest project involved the writing of eight songs to the melody of popular nursery rhymes, each song with a theme such as seatbelt safety, travelling on a bus, rules for riding your bike etc. A local primary school, Clintclay P.S. in Clonmore, Co Armagh agreed to have their pupils recorded singing a number of the songs on the project CD. The CD also provides instrumental only versions of the songs and is accompanied by a songbook with the melody score and lyrics. All schools in Northern Ireland were asked to take part in an art competition to illustrate the songbook and 24 pupils from over 3000 entrants had their work selected and they attended a prize giving in June 2014 to acknowledge their excellent artwork.

Roisin continues “We know that through song and music the learning experience is enhanced and the repetition of core messages will not only educate the target age-group of keystage 1 children but also their older (and younger) siblings, parents, family members will listen to the songs and pick up the road safety messages. Children are like sponges absorbing information in these formative years and by fostering positive road safety education and habits, we would hope that these will be recalled as the children grow up.

We are very grateful to the Community Transport Association and DOE Road Safety for allowing us to progress with this project, and to the schools who took part in the artwork competition and Clintyclay PS for their enthusiasm in the production of the CD and songbook. We trust that the primary schools will find this to be a useful resource and look forward to feedback and further ideas from schools for future projects. We apologise again to the schools affected by the postage issues and urge them to collect their packs and contact us if they wish to be reimbursed”.

All the project materials for the three years are held on the website www.journeytoschool.com and teachers, parents, youth groups are encouraged to download the materials and continue to work towards the reduction of road fatalities and injuries.

Photos :

1. Prizewinning pupils from NI schools whose artwork illustrated the songbook receive their prize from Bryan Myles, CTA; Deputy Mayor of Dungannon & South Tyrone, Dominic Molloy and Roisin McAliskey, Journey to School Project Manager, STEP.

Winning schools -  Cumran P.S.; Bridge I.P.S.; Bush P.S.; Lisbellaw P.S.; Crumlin Integrated P.S.; St Columba's P.S.; St Mary's P.S.; St Finlough's P.S.; Laghey P.S.; St Joseph's P.S.; Clonalig P.S.; Drumadonnell P.S.; Irvinestown P.S.; St Paul's P.S.; St Comgall's P.S.; St Nicholas' P.S.; St Oliver Plunkett P.S.; Longtower P.S.; Holy Rosary P.S.; Killowen P.S.; Edenderry P.S.; St Joseph's P.S.

2. John Brown, Cumran P.S. Downpatrick showing off his winning entry in the Journey to School Songbook in the P2 category

3. Elizabeth Gynne, St Joseph’s P.S. Carryduff, with her third place illustration in the P7 category

4. Clintyclay P.S., Co Armagh who were performed on the Journey to School CD at a recording session.