By Skye Murtagh
Published: Thursday, October 21, 2021
Road safety awareness is one of the most essential skills any child can have – and the earlier the basics are understood, the better it is for all road users.
After the recent spring break, students across South Australia are back at school and, for hundreds of our state’s youngest scholars, some of the most important lessons of their lives will be learned over the coming weeks.
Co-funded by RAA, Think! Road Safety and Lifetime Support Authority, Street Smart Primary is a hands-on road safety program – tailor-made for primary school students from Reception up to year six, and delivered in schools by RAA’s first class Road Safety Educators – for free.
That’s right. From Adelaide to Andamooka, Seacliff to Ceduna, Plympton to Pinnaroo – if you’re a South Australian school with a primary enrolment, then you’re eligible to book in a free visit from the Street Smart Primary team.
Plenty have taken up the offer too. Since the program launched in 2014, it’s delivered potentially life changing road safety lessons to over 100,000 young students across the state.
To understand the impact the program has on the youngsters taking part and the type of skills kids collect in a class, samotor’s video team recently tagged along with Libby Kokkinoplitis, one of RAA’s expert Road Safety Educators, on a visit she paid to some of the Reception and year one students at St Therese School in Colonel Light Gardens.
By the time the 2021 summer holidays start, the Street Smart Primary team will have undertaken 229 school visits and presented to some 15,000 young SA students.
“Normally across a year we’d conduct 280 school visits, but we were interrupted by the COVID-19 lockdown earlier this year,” says Ben Haythorpe, RAA’s Senior Manager Community Engagement.
Street Smart Primary bookings are available now for the 2022 school calendar year, with term one sessions filling up fast – so get booking quick.
“We already have four regional trips planned in term one, which is great as we want to reach as many South Australian students across the state as possible,” says Mr Haythorpe.
Each Street Smart Primary session is customised to address the specific issues faced by individual schools in the road safety space. Modified lessons are also available for students with additional needs.