TRAVEL to school with respect and travel in safety – that's the message 1,500 Nottingham pupils are taking home with them thanks to special training lessons in bus safety.
The Year Six children, from schools across the Nottingham conurbation, have been taking part in a fortnight-long event called Safetyzone held at Stoke Bardolph.
During Safetyzone, children are given gentle introductions to a range of services such as the police, Fire and Rescue Service and public transport operators such as Nottingham City Transport (NCT) and the NET tram.
This year NCT brought along a double-decker bus in which children learned about the vehicle's latest state-of-the-start CCTV equipment – the kind which is now being fitted to all NCT buses.
Meanwhile, NCT Schools Liaison officer Stuart Limb , with the help of role play, told the pupils about the basic rules of how to travel safely on school buses and reminded them how important it is to show respect to drivers.
Basic lessons included sitting sensibly on buses, the importance of not dropping litter and the need to give up a seat to elderly or disabled passengers where necessary.
These, and many other points of good behavior on school buses, already form the basis of the Safemark scheme, which introduced a Code of Conduct on pupil travel between NCT and participating schools when it was launched in 2005.
Since then, the number of participating schools has grown to 40 and incidents of poor behavior have fallen – in part because of the Code of Conduct, but also because head teachers are co-operating more fully with NCT when incidents have occurred.
Safemark, and an annual award titled Golden Safemark given to the best behaving school, are both supported by the Respect for Transport campaign, which aims to reduce actual and perceived levels of crime and anti-social behavior on Nottingham 's buses and trams.
At NCT, Stuart Limb said: “The pupils we are talking to at Safetyzone are in Year Six, so we are catching them just before they start secondary school when they will probably begin using school buses on a regular basis. We know from previous Safetyzone events, and from the Safemark scheme, that teaching children the basic rules of safe and polite travel has a positive impact on their behavior – and that not only improves their schools' reputations but also cuts down on our damage and vandalism costs.”
PC Derek Pickering , the public transport beat manager for Nottingham , added: “Teaching pupils about how to behave properly on school buses from an early age can make a lasting improvement on their behavior as they get older, and that's got to be good for them, other passengers and the transport operators.”
Respect for Transport was launched in July 2004 and is backed by Nottinghamshire police, Nottingham City Council, Nottingham City Transport, Nottinghamshire County Council, Nottingham Express Transit, JC Decaux, British Transport Police and Greater Nottingham Transport Partnership's The Big Wheel.
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