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Chapter 8 Accessing Streetsense

This chapter examines views in relation to accessing Streetsense. This includes comments on the number of copies available in schools, the use of the website, how the resource is shared and how photocopying is dealt with.

8.1 Number of copies

Most schools only received one pack unless they were a very large school in which case they received two. Very few schools received more than this.

Of the 190 schools responding to the survey that had a copy of the resource, 78% had one copy, 13% had two copies and 5% had three or more copies. 8% of schools did not know how many copies they had.

Whilst it was to be the case that only very large schools received multiple copies, in practice some smaller schools do have more copies whist some large schools are getting by with only one.

Table 8.1; Number of copies available by school roll

Those who knew how many copies they had in their school were asked if this was sufficient. Only 80% thought that it was sufficient while 18% felt that they needed more copies.

The lack of copies was described as more problematic where there are composite classes when one teacher may be using two levels at the same time. Indeed the survey confirmed this view with 19% of those with composite classes asking for more copies compared to the 16% who did not have any composite classes.

When asked how many copies they would like to have. The greatest proportion wanted to have two (36%) or three (39%) copies. The following table shows how many they would have liked by school roll.

Table 8.2; Number of copies would liked to have by school roll

One Road Safety Officer commented that it was a limitation of the resource that they can't go back to Road Safety Scotland and ask for more.

" If the shelf life is 10 years, which we expect this resource to last, then over time, things will go missing and there's no central resource"
Road Safety Officer

Road Safety Officers have identified a key problem relating to the lack of spare copies of Streetsense. When a school makes contact to say that they do not have a copy of Streetsense for whatever reason, the Road Safety Officers do not have a stock of spare copies to hand out and can only point them at the website where it can be downloaded. One Road Safety Officer commented that this inability to provide copies was now becoming an issue.

"They've either lost the pack or maybe, if the head teacher or a teacher has moved on, they've taken it with them to the next school"
Road Safety Officer

"We've visited 4 or 5 schools and we've had to say you can download it from the website and I really don't think that's good enough. Our schools are used to a level of service and we're just disappointed that we can't reach that level"
Road Safety Officer

The universities reported no difficulties with the number of copies they had received.

8.2 Web access

Awareness of web access was low and where people were aware, use of this facility was also poor. Of the 190 schools that had a copy of Streetsense only 30% were aware that it was available on the web. There was no difference in levels of awareness based on whether training had been provided or not. However 32% of those who were using Streetsense were aware of the web material compared to 25% of those who were not using Streetsense.

Of the 57 who were aware of web access only 42% had ever accessed the website and 21% had downloaded anything from the website.

Those who were aware of the website either found it helpful (60%) or could not comment (40%).

From discussions with teachers, problems identified included

• Lack of reliability of the connection
• Difficulties accessing the resource on-line
• Lack of time
• Reluctance
• Expense of printing
• Preference for hard copy
• Internet access not available from every classroom

Interestingly downloading from the Internet was seen as more time consuming than photocopying. In one school, the teacher indicated that any downloading would have to be done after school whilst if copies of worksheets are required they can just be sent up to be photocopied for them.

One school was interested in finding out if there were any activities that could be undertaken on-line as it might be able to be timetabled into some ICT classes if this was the case.

Another praised the website and liked the fact that it gave lots of links to other sites. The children enjoy accessing information this way.

One of the advantages of web based resources it that they can more easily be kept up to date and any links that are no longer appropriate can be deleted or new ones added.

Despite the problems that currently exist with the use of the current resource on the web this was seen as a key means of accessing the resource in the future. It offers a number of advantages.

The use of the web within schools is rising and LTS estimate that 70% of schools now have broadband, although it is recognised that secondary schools are more likely to have full coverage first. This is increasing quickly and it is estimated that by September 2006, 85-90% will have broadband.

The Scottish Schools Digital Network ( SSDN) being developed by LTScotland is an intranet closed to teachers and students. This means that only those who are allowed access to this network will be able to access and will therefore provide a more secure site, which will make it easier to push the use of this as a tool. It will essentially allow for a virtual learning environment to be created. This may have implications for how Streetsense might be developed in future as any interactive resource would have to be specifically designed for that purpose. It also allows for the resource to be better publicised.

One potential problem is that Road Safety Scotland will be outside of the intranet as the eligibility for inclusion is education departments, teachers, pupils and educational psychologists. There is bound to be demand for others on the periphery to want to be included and it might be difficult to judge where that line might be.

8.3 Sharing

There were some issues raised in relation to how the resource was shared out amongst teachers.

Commonly the resource is held centrally in a resource room or occasionally the staff room and teachers access the resource as required. In most cases this works well but some teachers did mention going to retrieve a particular level only to find that it was already out. Sometimes teachers did not return the resource immediately and teachers were left trying to find out who had it. It was mentioned that this would be less of a problem if there was more than one resource available in the school. This may be off-putting for some and adds to the barriers of using the resource.

Composite classes and the fact that some levels are to be used by numbers of year groups all add to the problem of sharing.

Many had worked out how the actual books could be shared out and this included photocopying the resource such that it could be easily shared but this could not be undertaken for the additional resources such as CDs and posters.

One school had booklets made up for each teacher plus all the worksheets they might need in a folder ready to be photocopied as required. Whilst this was initially seen as a lot of work it was easily maintained. The master copy remains in the resource room where it can be accessed. They were concerned that if they were sharing the master copy it might become lost.

Road Safety Officers are aware of this problem and report receiving calls from newly trained teachers who are aware of the resource but cannot find it within their school.

8.4 Photocopying

The issue of photocopying was raised both by Road Safety Officers and by teachers. Many teachers simply accepted that photocopying worksheets from resource packs was usual and expected. Indeed as one teacher commented, if it is a good resource then it is welcomed as it saves them having to prepare something themselves.

"It's not a problem. Schools are used to that. To be honest if it's good quality, teachers prefer it because they don't have to go and make something."
Head teacher

Others saw it as a more difficult or onerous task. One head teacher commented that the spiral binding made it more difficult to copy pages and that providing photocopiable masters of worksheets along with the pack might be helpful.

Another commented that photocopies were never quite as good as the original and so lost something in the process.

For one school photocopying was an issue as they are encouraged to reduce and recycle and so need to keep it to a minimum. Despite this the copying was not seen as a major issue.

Some of the Road Safety Officers were more vocal about this problem presumably speaking on behalf of their schools. One mentioned that this was an added expense for schools for which they have no budget. This issue was particularly acute in the West of Scotland where they had previously had access to their workbooks 'Ways to Safety'. Whilst this has been an issue from the start of Streetsense one Road Safety Officer commented that no-one has as yet come up with an improved solution.

Only one local authority has offered to undertake photocopying for all of its schools. This would be an impossible task for most local authorities to even consider.

"What we said we would do is photocopy all the worksheets into books - workbooks - for the children so that they wouldn't have to do the photocopying in school. So as well as a financial benefit, it's also helping learning assistant's time to photocopy and compile all these things. Also what we said was we would make up teacher's handbooks as well so we would photocopy the relevant teachers' pages for those activities."
Road Safety Officer

Given the number of comments about possible problems photocopying the resource, this was tested with a larger sample in the survey. The overwhelming majority agreed that the worksheets were easy to photocopy.

Table 8.3; Ease of photocopying

Base = 146; those using Streetsense

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