May 26 2005

Children from Gabalfa, Cefn Onn, St John Lloyd and Stacey Road Primary schools are all taking part in a Cardiff Council scheme aimed at teaching youngsters about road safety.

JRSO stands for Junior Road Safety Officer. Usually there are two Primary Year 6 pupils appointed as JRSO’s in each primary school for a one year period. The JRSO’s are ‘employed’ by the school to help their local Road Safety Officer promote road safety issues within the school and local community.

This includes:

• Looking after a central notice board and make sure the road safety information on it is kept up-to-date
• Talking at assemblies and to other classes on road safety topics
• Running competitions in the school and get prizes for the winners

Elgan Morgan, the newly-elected Executive Member for Transportation, said: "The Junior Road Safety Officer scheme is a joint venture between staff at the road safety centre, pupils, teachers and even parents. It is a brilliant idea involving youngsters in citizenship and road safety."

The Junior Road Safety Officers have each opted for different ways to promote the `Be Safe Be Seen’ message. Cefn Onn produced different written competitions for each year group and awarded prizes given by the staff at the road safety centre. St. Mary the Virgin School will be preparing to introduce JRSO’s to their scheme in September.

St John Lloyd gave a whole-school presentation about the importance of being visible during the darker daylight hours and discussed their plans to erect a Road Safety notice board.

David Evans, Principal Road Safety Officer, said: "The aim of the Junior Road Safety Officer scheme is to empower children so they can highlight road safety issues and thereby raise awareness among pupils, teachers and their own local community. We hope this scheme is such a success, that we’ll be able to include other Cardiff schools in the future."

Notes for Editors:

The JRSO’s are selected in one of two ways – either the teacher chooses the candidates or the children themselves apply for the role through presentations and elections. Then, during the summer term, the JRSO’s finally pick their successors from Year Five.