Road Safety in Early Education #2: A Whole-of-Service Approach

In this next episode of our Road Safety in Early Education mini-series, host Linda Harrison is joined by experts Amanda and Bec to shift the conversation from "one-off incursions" to a deliberate, ongoing commitment. We dive into the three core pillars of effective road safety education - partnerships, policies, and programming. Discover why road safety shouldn't be a stand-alone topic, but rather a living part of your service’s daily routines. Our guests explain how to move beyond basic messages and create a robust framework that embeds road safety into the very fabric of your early childhood environment.

We also tackle the practical side of these pillars, reimagining service policies as active tools rather than documents on a shelf. Learn how to weave road safety into excursion plans, transition-to-school procedures, and emergency evacuations while maintaining a play-based, child-centered approach to programming. This episode emphasises the vital balance of engaging children in the "how" and "why" of road safety without making them responsible for their own safety. Tune in to learn how to build a culturally safe and pedagogically sound road safety program that reflects the EYLF V2.0 and supports your local community.

Find out more:
https://kidsandtraffic.mq.edu.au/

If you enjoyed this episode, consider leaving us a review on your favourite podcast platform.

Have questions or feedback? Connect with us on social media or email us at info@learnplaythrive.com.au

Connect with Us:

- Website: www.learnplaythrive.com.au

- Instagram: @learnplaythrive_

- Facebook: @Learn Play Thrive Australia

- Email: info@learnplaythrive.com.au

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Learn Play Thrive the podcast, the ultimate early learning podcast for educators and leaders in the sector. Let's learn, play, and thrive together.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

The Learn Play Thrive podcast was recorded on the land with the Dark and John people. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians, past, present, and emerging. Hands up, hands down, clear on dark and young land.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Welcome back to our Learn Play Thrive mini-series, Road Safety in Early Education. I'm Linda Harrison, and today we are tackling a foundational concept of a whole of service approach. We know that effective road safety education isn't just a random incursion once a year, it is a deliberate ongoing commitment. So Amanda and Beck are back with us to explain how we can move from using the kids in traffic key road safety messages to an integrated framework in early education settings. Welcome back. Thanks, Linda. It's great to be here. So Amanda, when we talk about effective road safety education, how can educators create a whole of service approach to help keep young children safe in the road traffic environment?

SPEAKER_02 1:05

It really comes down to three core pillars partnerships, policies, and programming. When road safety is considered and embedded in each, you have a whole of service approach. It ensures road safety is ongoing and consistent in daily teaching, learning, and routines of an early childhood service, rather than just being the standalone topic that's planned for only during certain times of the year.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Okay, so let's look at partnerships first. The Kids in Traffic Whole of Service Approach Framework tells us that road safety education is most effective when it's a shared journey between the service and the home. So why is partnership so vital in the early years?

SPEAKER_04 1:45

Because young children are still developing the skills needed to stay safe. The family is essential for ensuring the child's safety. Effective road safety messages and road safety education means talking to families right from enrolment and daily at that drop-off and pickup times. We need to hear concerns from their everyday journeys with their children, like their experience in a busy car park or travelling in the car, or particular types of journeys, or even just being out and about and the challenges they have when their child does or doesn't do something. So we can create learning experiences that are relevant and meaningful to the child's lives.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Oh, and I'd love to hear a story about what that might look like in an early childhood education and care service.

SPEAKER_02 2:28

Well, we worked alongside a service where families had identified challenges with children not remaining buckled up in their car seats and exiting the car in an unsafe way at the front of the service. So educators supported families to recognise that the safety door, that rear passenger door, is the safest point for children to exit a vehicle as it keeps them away from the road and allows for the adult assistance.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

And when considering the service planned in intentional um play-based learning experiences, focusing on that passenger safety which they had identified. For the younger children in the service, the educators set up a role play experience using the children's high chairs with seat belts, modelling that buckling up and exiting through the safety door. For the older preschool children, educators worked collaboratively with a group to create a cardboard box car, enabling children to roleplay, being safely secured with seatbelts in their car seats, and using that safety door when exiting the vehicle.

SPEAKER_02 3:26

So educators documented the learning and shared it with families to strengthen that connection between the service and home practices. Families were also provided with a safety door sticker, one of our free resources that's available, and encourage the consistent use and reinforce the message when children were out and about in the vehicles with their families.

SPEAKER_03 6:01

I love those ideas. They're so practical and you know they'd be quite simple to implement with any children's service, especially using those kind of recycled materials like the cardboard box to create that car with the seat belts. So that's the first kind of part of a whole of service approach. So the second pillar, if we move on to policies, I think sometimes we might think of service policies, you know, as something that sits in a folder on the shelf. So how can they become an active part of our effective road safety education program?

SPEAKER_02 6:33

So in an effective approach, policies are a valuable tool for embedding road safety education. They don't just exist, they inform. They tell everyone, so our educators, our families, and the community exactly what behaviours are required to keep children safe.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

And it should be broader than just one policy?

SPEAKER_04 6:52

Most definitely, Linda. Thinking about effective road safety education means road safety is woven into your safe arrivals and departure policies, in your excursion policies, your transition to school procedures, and even your emergency evacuation plans. It should also include a commitment to their ongoing professional learning for educators. If the educators are staying up to date, this road safety education the children receive stays high quality.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

So one service we've worked with that comes to mind when thinking about this ongoing professional learning in relation to specifically to their emergency evacuation drills. So the team who got themselves into this, well, this is how we do it because this is how we've always done it, sort of mentality. But when they were challenged to think as a team about why are we doing it this way? Why are we evacuating to this particular space? And is this really the safest option when everyone from the service is leaving the building and then gathering in an assembly point? They really started to work together to drill down into those various ways of improving the quality of their procedures and ensuring the children's safety while outside of the service.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Yeah, it's so important to get those evacuation procedures right. So I think it's a great resource that Kids in Traffic can offer too, to support services when they're kind of delving into that and maybe re-evaluating their policies and looking at what the best space is to safely evacuate young children. And so that brings us to the third pillar of your whole of service approach to road safety education, which is programming. And I know that effective road safety education is based on those foundations of high-quality early childhood pedagogy. So, what does that look like in practice for early childhood educators?

SPEAKER_04 8:42

So it means for us to be hands-on, play-based, and child-centered. Effective programming for road safety is cross-curriculum. So looking at it, looking at those dramatic play, music, and those real-life interactions that can help children develop their understandings of how to keep safe. With road safety education, it needs should always engage children in learning about how to keep safe without making them responsible for their own safety.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

I imagine there's some really lovely uh songs and rhymes that could embed those road safety messages. Maybe they're coming in a future episode, are they?

SPEAKER_04 9:16

They most definitely are. And you think about how much children respond to music. There's songs that they can be singing as they're arriving and departing to really share those key road safety messages. So stay tuned for our music sessions very, very soon.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Oh, look forward to that. But I think also an important thing for educators to keep in mind is that for road safety education to be effective, I imagine it really needs to be embedded throughout the whole year, right?

SPEAKER_04 9:42

Most definitely. It's really, really important to be ongoing. So consistently focusing on those key road safety messages, but always keep the responsibility of the adult. We're engaging children in the how, why of that safety without making them responsible for their own survival in the road traffic environment. Our children are in that traffic environment every day. From the minute they leave their home to the minute they arrive at preschool or at the local shopping centre, swimming lessons to the minute they get home. So it's something that it needs to be considered and that continuous road safety education on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_03 10:17

And I think it's something that I often will think about in the way that some services might think, oh, the children are not interested in road safety if my curriculum is following the children's interests. Um, you know, uh they're not interested in it, so I'm not planning for that at the moment. But as you say, they're engaged in that road traffic environment, they're part of it every single day. And it's important that we also bring that to the curriculum to help the families keep their young children safe.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

And sometimes it doesn't always have to be our planned experiences either. We can think about those opportunities through daily routines and transitions to bring in road safety messaging. I think back to when I was working as an early childhood teacher in a service. I remember using these long rolls of paper to create pedestrian crossings with the children, you know, black paint, um painting those familiar lines of the pedestrian crossing that children recognize. Um when they were dry, we uh strategically placed them throughout the room. So for a lot there was lots of opportunities to be using them throughout the day. We used them for those transitions when we were moving from, you know, group time to meal time or from inside to outside play from different types of learning experiences. And they stayed down, you know, pretty much until they started to rip. But over a couple of weeks it gave us the opportunity to use those messages through our transitions. It also staggered our transitions so we didn't have everyone lining up at the bathroom. It it was that staggered transition from one space to another, uh, all while being able to talk about hand holding using those crossings.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Well, I think it's so clear that you know, when we combine all those pillars of road safety that you've talked about today, the partnerships and the policies and the programming, that we can really create a road safety culture in our early childhood education and care services that is aimed at keeping young children safe. And that whole of service approach is actually the launch pad for the rest of the series. Uh so what's coming up next as we continue this road safety journey?

SPEAKER_02 12:24

So next time we'll be getting into the nitty-gritty of programming and planning for road safety with young children with the early years learning framework in mind. We're also going to look at how to document this learning so it's visible to your families. And we'll continue to explore how to make those meaningful connections to your local community.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

Well, Amanda and Beck, thank you again. And listeners, as you head back to your services today, I'd encourage you to think about how your partnerships, your policies, and your programming are all working together to support effective road safety education in your early years setting. So until next time, when you're thinking about road safety, keep it hands-on, keep it play-based, and remember road safety for young children is a community responsibility.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

See you next time. Bye everyone! Thank you for joining us on this episode of Learn Playthrive the podcast. We hope you found inspiration and valuable insights to fuel your journey in early childhood education. Remember the key to fostering learning, promoting play, and empowering young minds lies with your dedication and creativity. Stay connected between episodes by following us on Instagram at learnplaythrive underscore and join the conversation on Facebook at LearnPlaythrive Australia. If you've enjoyed today's episode, please like, subscribe, rate, or review our podcast on your favorite platform. Your feedback helps us to continue to deliver content that resonates with you. And don't forget to visit us at our website at learnplaythrive.com.au for additional resources, blog posts, and professional development opportunities. Until next time, keep learning, keep playing, and keep thriving. We'll see you in the next episode of Learn Playthrive the podcast.