The Scottish Government

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Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Introduction

Streetsense is a road safety education resource developed by Road Safety Scotland (previously the Scottish Road Safety Campaign) after extensive research and piloting, making use of experienced teachers to support its development. It was launched in September 2003 with the aim of making it available to all primary schools across Scotland.

Streetsense comprises of a pack that includes teachers' notes, suggested lesson plans and pupil activities. It is structured around the 5 -14 curriculum with a separate folder for each of the A-E levels. It is linked to the health education 5 -14 guidelines with the activities referenced to road safety attainment targets within those guidelines.

1.2 Aims and Objectives

The overall aim of this research is to:

Evaluate the distribution, uptake and use of the Streetsense resource.

The more detailed objectives are to:

• Identify how effectively the Streetsense resource has been distributed
• Explore whether primary schools currently use the Streetsense resource
• Outline how schools use the Streetsense resource
• Identify the ways in which the resource could be sustained and developed

1.3 Methodology

The methodology employed was a combination of depth interviews, undertaken in person or by phone, with key stakeholders combined with a quantitative survey of schools.

Face to face interviews were undertaken with 11 Road Safety Officers. Telephone interviews were undertaken with a further 16 Road Safety Officers ensuring that all parts of Scotland were covered.

Visits were made to 8 primary schools. Where possible the head teacher was interviewed. In practice, although this had been arranged, this was sometimes delegated to another member of staff, commonly a member of the management team but occasionally a class teacher.

A further 4 primary schools were contacted towards the end of the study who had not made use of the resource to examine in more detail the reasons for non use. Whilst visiting schools, efforts were made to speak to some pupils and a request made to speak with the Junior Road Safety Officers ( JRSOs) if they were available. This was achieved in four of the schools visited.

In addition four lecturers from Scottish universities providing teacher training were interviewed by phone.

Four personal interviews were undertaken with others representing:

• HM Inspectorate of Education ( HMIE)
• Learning and Teaching Scotland ( LTS)
• LA Education Departments.

Two further telephone interviews were also undertaken with Quality Improvement Officers or Education Advisers within local authority education departments.

A self-completion questionnaire was sent out to 598 schools across Scotland including a representative sample of independent and special schools. The sample was stratified by school roll within local authorities to ensure a spread across various sizes of schools.

A response rate of 40% was achieved. We cannot be sure that the non-response was equivalent to those who responded e.g. was there a greater tendency for those who were using the resource to reply?

Again whilst the questionnaire was addressed to the head teacher, it was completed by a range of staff members. Of the 240 responses to the survey, questionnaires were completed by:

Whilst the data could provide for analysis by local authority this has not been provided within this report, as the sample sizes for each local authority are too small to allow for meaningful analysis.

In some tables a mean has been calculated on the basis of attributing scores ranging from 1-5 to the responses e.g. 5 to a response of very good and 1 to a response of not good at all. This simply provides an easy way of comparing the findings across the variables being measured.

1.4 Structure of this report

Chapters 2-4 of this report cover the processes of distribution, promotion and training of the Streetsense resource. The subsequent four chapters describe the output of Streetsense and include chapters on the extent of use, how the resource is used, the perceptions of Streetsense and accessing Streetsense. Chapter 9 explores the outcomes of the use of the resource. Finally Chapter 10 outlines the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the resource and offers some suggestions for improvement. Chapter 11 summarises conclusions and some recommendations resulting from this evaluation.

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