Road safety for secondary
Hampshire County Council Road Safety Team provides education and training resources for people who live and work in Hampshire. Their aim is to make the roads safer for everyone to use and run campaigns throughout the year to highlight the importance of road safety, focusing on drivers, riders, cyclists and pedestrians. They have a team of specialists, including road safety officers, and work in partnership with other organisations including the police, the fire and rescue service, the NHS and other local authorities.
Cycle training
Cycling can be one of the choices available to pupils and their families either for school journeys or for leisure activities, and so to support this choice, the Road Safety Team provide pupils with the opportunity to undertake Bikeability Level 2 and 3 cycle training. Bikeability Level 2 is available to Years 5, 6 and 7 and the more advanced Level 3 is available to children in Years 7, 8 and 9 that have already achieved Level 2 standard.
Level 3 Bikeability for Secondary
Level 3 cycle training is delivered in school to students between years 7 and 9. This training is free to the students and schools who take part with some schools running courses at the weekend or during half term. Each level 3 course is 3-5 hours and delivered in a 3:1 ratio students to instructor.
Cycling is a fantastic tool for both students and teachers. As well as the on-road training; cycling offers many classroom opportunities including, route planning, measuring distances, calculating costs, creative writing, exploring local trails, investigating cycle paths and plotting a safe journey. Cycling fits into just about every subject!
“Bikeability is cycling road safety training for the modern world. We want to empower children to think and act for themselves. It is a life-long skill that can be instilled at a young age, encouraging a healthy lifestyle, boosting confidence and developing independence.” British Cycling
After demonstrating to our national standard instructors that your students are confident cycling in local traffic, they will be put through more complex training that is tailored to the training needs of each individual student.
The Summer term will provide perfect conditions for your students to cycle to school. Ages 11-14 are a high-risk pedal casualty age group. Bikeability Level 3 will raise the awareness of your students to the dangers around them. Level 3 is delivered in a small ratio and can be during school, at lunch or even an after-school club.
For further information please contact bikeability.enquiries@hants.gov.uk.
StreetSense
'StreetSense' is a Hampshire County Council led Road Safety campaign aimed at secondary school students aged 11 -16, to highlight the dangers of being distracted at the roadside and aims to reduce the number of casualties amongst this age group on Hampshire’s roads.
By using a range of measures - including educational materials for use by schools and talks from road safety experts - this campaign will remind both teenagers and pre-teens about keeping safe as they travel on foot or by bike, particularly to and from school. This approach aims to increase awareness of the potential dangers from being distracted by using mobiles, MP3 players or by friends around roads is intended to stay with them as they become young motorists, encouraging them to be safer drivers and riders.
Visit the Road Safety website to find out more.
RouteGuard App
Walking and cycling more improves the environment as well as young people’s mental health. Travelling sustainably to school is a benefit to our mental health and well-being as well as the environment and RouteGuard is a great way of allowing parents and carers to actively engage with their young people, planning routes and agreeing the boundaries for safe and independent travel.
RouteGuard pairs an app on the parent's phone with an app on the young person's device and allows the parent or carer to select a series of safe zones or roads to be added to the young person’s profile. The parent would then receive a notification if their child moves out of the agreed safe zone.
By signing your school up and promoting RouteGuard, you can encourage parents to allow their child to be more active and the parents to be more confident as they begin to travel independently.
As a school, you just need to register and you will be allocated a code, which you share with any interested parents. The parent then downloads the RouteGuardian app on their phone, using your code and paying £2.99; they then set up their own account on their device. The parent will then be sent another code which links to the RouteGuard app on their child’s device, which allows the accounts to be connected and therefore notifications be sent to and from the devices. Parents can use the same code to connect to different devices if they have more than one child.
The Ultimate Guide to Cycling
A digital guide, providing advice and information to get started or get you back on a bicycle.