Road safety: Worthing pupils on the march to raise awareness of the 50 children killed or injured on the region’s roads every week

Springfield Infant School took part in the Brake’s Kids Walk with the road safety charity’s campaign mascot Shaun the Sheep to highlight the fact the south east region has the highest rate of child road casualties in the UK – 2,327 in 2019.

Becky Wycherley, headteacher, said: “Road safety is part of our curriculum and we pride ourselves on ensuring children know how to keep safe when walking to and from school.

“We continually encourage parents and members of our local community to abide by road safety rules and make them aware of the dangers and how to keep their children safe.

“Our school is on a busy residential road and we have made huge efforts to make posters, put signs up and communicate via newsletters on the importance of driving slowly and carefully and parking in appropriate places.

“We are fully supported by parents and this Kids Walk opportunity will reinforce our knowledge as well as making learning about safety fun. It is every child’s right to be able to walk safely to and from school and we will do everything to make that happen.”

Around 4,000 children aged four to 11 took to the streets around their schools for supervised walks to build on the key road safety messages they have been learning.

Scott Williams, head of programme delivery at Brake, said: “It’s every child’s right to be able to walk in their community without fear of traffic and pollution.

“Throughout the pandemic families have taken to the streets on foot and by bike and we hope these activities will continue as restrictions lift and ordinary road traffic returns.

“It is vital that children are able to walk safely in the places where they live. Although numbers of children killed or injured in the south east shows positive signs of decline, every road death or injury is one too many and causes devastation for families, schools and communities.”