Road safety education

STARS

We use the TfL STARS accreditation scheme in Southwark, allowing schools access to many more resources, support and funding streams. More importantly, it allows schools to record issues surrounding travel and safety at their school. Road Safety projects can be tailored to issues that schools raise on their school travel plans.

We now have 69 of our schools with a travel plan, of which 31 have achieved gold status, 6 silver and 32 bronze/engaged.

Each school will also receive a plaque and certificate to display and can use the logo on their website and letterheads.

Training to use TfL STARS is available for free and there's support to run exciting projects such as Youth Travel Ambassadors (YTA) for secondary schools and Junior Travel Ambassadors (JTA).

Any schools wishing to take part can email highways@southwark.gov.uk to arrange a visit to train or set up the JTA or YTA scheme.

You can register on the TfL STARS website. Once you've registered, you can complete the plan and upload your evidence to start your accreditation for your school travel plan.

Travel Plans are essential for the borough to find out how children are getting to and from school and record any issues surrounding each school. This will enable us to target road safety training and projects accordingly. We work together with the public health team to encourage healthier lifestyles as well as the Healthy Schools Programme.

Cycle training

Taking an active role in their schools to encourage safe active travel helps pupils develop excellent independent travel skills. We encourage schools to take part in these free schemes.

Pupils are recruited to:

• lead in delivering a specific transport related scheme of their choosing
• become a Youth Travel Ambassador
• follow the programme for the year delivering assemblies, messages and running competitions

Peer teaching is an excellent way to relay messages to an entire school. The ambassadors also gain excellent skills that can follow them through their school life and with the secondary scheme their participation can directly transfer onto their CV for seeking work.

Walk to School Month

Walk to School Month is an action-packed awareness week. You can find resources on the Living Streets website. Schools can choose to run a walk to school week whenever it's convenient for them.

The aim of the week is to try to encourage as many parents and carers as possible to walk their children to school. The overall aim is to encourage a long-term change in their travel patterns on the journey to school.

Living Streets offer more free lesson plans and resources for key stage 1 and 2 and the other walking campaigns.

Walking to school helps children learn vital road safety, awareness and orientation skills and improves their confidence in walking independently when they're older. It has been proven that children who walk to school arrive more ready to learn.

Page last updated: 18 October 2023