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Chapter 11 Conclusion and Recommendations
In conclusion, teachers and Road Safety Officers alike see this as an excellent resource. Those who are using it have praised many different aspects of it. It was generally seen as easy to use - well presented, teacher friendly, offering a good choice of activity and being in a format that teachers were familiar with. Importantly, children are seen to enjoy using this resource.
The distribution methods varied across Scotland. It should have now arrived in the great majority of schools. Some schools do not appear to have a copy and this may be as a result of lost copies or failures in distribution.
Some schools have not had the resource for very long suggesting a distribution process that has been quite protracted in some areas. A quarter of all users had been using it for less than one year. It might have been useful to set a timetable for distribution if authorities were to undertake this themselves.
Despite a distribution process that on paper suggests that most schools should have the resource, the survey reveals that only 79% have a copy and only 60% of schools are using it.
The key weakness lies in the promotion of the resource. There will always remain some head teachers who will not give road safety sufficient space in their curriculum, but many seem to be not using the resource because they have not yet examined the resource properly or would like some help in how it is to be used.
A recommendation of this evaluation is that a renewed effort is made to promote the resource and that promotion thereafter remains ongoing. Successful means of ongoing promotion being used currently includes referring to it during visits to schools; Road Safety Officers making use of the resource themselves in visits to schools; offering training in the resource and promoting this e.g. via posters, production of newsletters and using it in conjunction with the JRSO scheme.
To do this, it is essential that further copies of the resource be made available. Some schools report having insufficient copies for their needs and Road Safety Officers on finding a school which for whatever reason does not appear to have a copy do not have a stock of spare copies to provide replacements. There is little point in Road Safety Officers promoting the resource if additional copies cannot be made available to them. It is recommended that further copies of Streetsense be printed.
As websites become more the norm for many educational tools, it will be important for Streetsense to not only be available on the web but to have links to other appropriate sites. In due course consideration should be given to using web-based software to promote children's work and to provide a site for teachers to learn from each other. However currently the website is little used by teachers and awareness of it is low.
Liaison with the local authority education department is helpful and with their support teachers are more likely to view the resource as worth using.
Many Road Safety Officers were keen to provide training but many found barriers especially in relation to the availability of teachers' time. If providing training, it is essential that this is planned well in advance so that it can be scheduled into the plan for the coming year and that this is done in conjunction with the LA Education Department wherever possible.
Teachers would prefer in-school sessions and consideration should be given to twilight sessions, which are increasingly used.
Teachers would also welcome demonstration lessons or Road Safety Officers providing in-class support. This was especially true for those lessons with a practical component.
The main reasons for not using the resource are:
- Lack of knowledge/awareness of the resource
- The size of the resource being a disincentive
- Lack of time / overcrowded curriculum
- Reluctance to change
- Loss of the resource
- Not having got round to implementing it
Road Safety Officers lack feedback from schools in the use of Streetsense and the introduction of a Road Safety Charter as currently used in Lothian and Borders may be one means by which this is achieved. It is recommended that consideration be given to implementing the Road Safety Charter across Scotland. Further feedback may be possible in the future by tracking who is accessing the website.
Streetsense is used more in the earlier stages of primary than the later stages. For some, the low use of Level E is simply that they have not got that far. There is little demand to develop a Level F.
Whilst all of the component parts of Streetsense were seen as being helpful, it was the lesson plans, the teachers' notes and the worksheets that were seen as the most useful.
The resource was seen as fitting in well with the existing curriculum.
There were some comments about a preference for a structure by primary school year or stage rather than by level. This was particularly the case for those teachers who tended not to differentiate with this subject preferring to teach the whole class a lesson most suited to the majority. However, the majority currently sees a structure by level as being helpful and most say it copes well with mixed ability classes. Given the curriculum review that is underway, it is recommended that no change be made to the structure until this review can be studied.
There were a few who would like to be able to identify a core component of Streetsense with further optional extension activities. However, it has proved to be quite difficult for those who have attempted it to identify core material.
Whilst the resource was perceived extremely positively, there were some negative comments made by a few. Some had concerns about the potential for repetition and of the resource being overly worksheet based. Some teachers however did acknowledge greater difficulties with certain of the more practical activities and so these comments might reflect how the resource is being used by some.
Some also felt that the illustrations especially in the later levels were overly childlike or old fashioned. However, in the survey, only 12% agreed that they were too childlike.
In terms of developing Streetsense in the future, although awareness and usage of the website was poor, it was recognised that interactive facilities and web based material is likely to be a key means of accessing resources of this type in the future. This might be linked to the Scottish Schools Digital Network ( SSDN). Advantages offered by the web include the opportunity for children to share their work with each other and for teachers to share good practice. Links to the JRSO scheme were also mentioned. It should however be noted that some teachers are not yet ready for this. Time, access difficulties and cost were all current barriers to downloading materials, let alone using the web interactively. However access to computers and to broadband is increasing rapidly. It is recommended that consideration be given to producing more interactive facilities to support Streetsense.
Teachers were keen to access materials, which could help prompt discussion. Short video clips were mentioned, but also posters. The additional materials, which came with Streetsense, were less easily shared as it was not possible to photocopy and were also more easily lost. It is recommended that, if not web based, more copies of additional materials are provided to schools.
Accessing the resource seems to work well in most schools although some have gone to a great deal of work to ensure that this happens smoothly, even photocopying the entire resource for each class. However the few that have done this feel that it will be easy to maintain in the future as only the worksheets need to be photocopied in forthcoming years.
The photocopying of worksheets was also an issue in some areas, with time and cost being the main problems. Others did however accept this as a normal part of their work and 90% in the survey indicated that the worksheets were easy to photocopy.
The key purpose of road safety education resource like Streetsense is to provide knowledge, to change attitudes and improve children's behaviour on the roads thus cutting accident rates. It is however extremely difficult to judge whether this one resource is responsible for creating a positive outcome. In response to the survey, significant improvements to knowledge were reported by just under half (47%), significant improvement to attitude by a third and only 18% could indicate a significant improvement to behaviour.
Overall this resource is seen as highly successful. The key problems relate to the promotion of the resource and enabling it to be used.
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