Junior Road Safety Officer

What is JRSO?

The Junior Road Safety Officer (JRSO) scheme has been running successfully since 2003.  Children from year 5 and 6 are nominated and appointed as JRSO to promote road safety and sustainable transport to their fellow pupils. 

What do they do?

They read monthly bulletins, give talks in assemblies, run competitions, have a Noticeboard to display posters and information and support the schools STP working group.  The school will be given a ‘Kids Pack’ of information and ideas to help their JRSOs in their role.

What are the benefits of JRSOs?

It is an excellent way to engage with pupils and encourage them to be involved in their school and the local community.  It enables them to participate in the development and maintenance of an active and successful school travel plan.

How do we take part?

The school appoints a ‘Helper’ to offer advice and support to the JRSOs – ensuring they have the opportunity to read their Bulletins and that they meet regularly to discuss promotional events and activities.

If you are not already participating but would like to be involved in the JRSO initiative please complete and return the ‘JRSO & Helper Registration Form’.

Conference

On November 18th 2011 over 150 JRSOs came along to their annual Conference – the JRSO Fun Day!  They came along with their adult Helpers to take part in workshops, activities and games. 

Workshops were run by Thames Valley Police, Bucks Fire and Rescue Service, Bike It, the I-Van multimedia studio and Officers from Transport for Buckinghamshire. The workshops included information on delivering road safety messages in assemblies, parking issues and road safety around the school gates, school journey planning and the role of Fire and Rescue in dealing with road traffic accidents.

The JRSOs were invited to take part in a JRSO Diary Room – Big Brother style!  They were asked questions about their role, road safety and sustainable travel.  Look out for the video of their interviews.

The I-Van provided the opportunity for them to produce a Comic Strip for their JRSO Noticeboard.  They took a photograph of themselves, redesigned it to change their features, then added speech bubbles to tell their own story.  They had great fun doing this and should be able to recreate the activity back at school.

An Activity Pack with practical worksheets and guidance on setting up activities, events and competitions is available for them to download from our website.

So what did the JRSOs enjoy about it..

I enjoyed seeing all of the other JRSOs and hearing their ideas
Lifting the dummy from the car crash in the Fire and Rescue workshop. 
In the Diary Room I felt like I was a celebrity being interviewed
That I got to go…

And what didn’t they enjoy

How busy it was
Not being able to do all the activities
Nothing!

Their Helpers gave the following comments:

It will given them confidence when speaking to the rest of the school
Reinforces some road safety ideas
It has provided ideas to take back to school to get the children interested
Give confidence, enthuse, provide focus and energise

Overall it was a very good event that helped our JRSOs understand their role and gave them ideas for activities and campaign to run at their schools.  We always look forward to hearing about what they do and how they use our resources.

There are around 250 JRSOs promoting road safety and sustainable travel to their peers in schools around Buckinghamshire.   If you would like further information on this initiative please contact travelchoice@buckscc.gov.uk or call 0845 230 2882