School pupils across County Durham have teamed up with a local author to create ghostly warnings and inspirational messages of heroism as part of a lesson about road safety.
Children’s author Adam Bushnell visited five primary schools across the county to deliver story writing workshops, designed to get children talking about how to keep themselves and their communities safe.
Adam fired pupil’s imaginations during his visits, working with KS1 pupils to encourage them to create their own road safety superheroes – and with older KS2 pupils to pen cautionary ghost stories.
The sessions were organised by Durham County Council’s road safety team to raise awareness of its ‘Slow to 20 for Safer Streets’ programme, which has seen a 20mph speed limit introduced outside 120 of the county’s schools.
Cllr Elizabeth Scott, cabinet member for economy and partnerships, said: “Reducing traffic speeds around schools helps to create a safer and healthier community.
“These school sessions are an innovative and enjoyable way to educate children about how lower driving speeds can help reduce road casualties and to teach them the skills they need to become safer pedestrians and cyclists.”
Adam, who has written such books as ‘The Evil Unicorn of Doom’, has created a video tutorial on how to write a road safety rap using iambic pentameter for Year 5 and 6 primary aged pupils.
Adam said: “It has been my privilege to work with Durham County Council’s road safety team for several years to promote a clear road safety message, which I think is an essential lesson for young people to learn.
“I wanted to run creative writing sessions that incorporated this message but were also as fun and engaging for the children as possible. With the older pupils we wrote cautionary ghost stories where the ghosts haunted the streets to warn others to heed road safety rules or face the consequences.
“With the younger pupils, road safety superheroes were featured, where the hero saves children and teaches them the rules of crossing the road safely.
“It was immensely enjoyable to see how engaged the children were and to read the incredible stories that they wrote.”
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