‘Well versed’ in road safety

A chance encounter with a local poet performing in schools in Hull resulted in an imaginative initiative to get road safety messages across to the city’s schoolchildren.

Hull’s road safety team members were impressed by the way Bernard Young performed his work and talked about the art of writing poetry. They also saw potential to use him to deliver road safety messages.

"We had a number of meetings with our LEA literacy adviser and identified a chunk of the literacy strategy for year 5 that focused on poetry," explains RSO, Mark Jessop. "We then spoke to several Y5 teachers and there was a general admission that they were uncomfortable teaching poetry and would welcome professional help."

The team then met with Bernard and discussed its road safety objectives for Key Stage 2 pupils - focusing on risk taking and its possible consequences - and how these objectives might be developed as a theme for poetry.

"We negotiated a price per school for his services and then set about finding the money," Mark continues. "The first tour was organised with two thirds of the funding from road safety budgets and the participating schools each paying one third."

Bernard spends a day in each school working with Y5 pupils. He begins by presenting some of his own work to demonstrate the different styles that the children might use. He then spends the rest of the day working with the children in small groups, or on a one-to-one basis, to help them develop their own work. At the end of the day the pupils perform their work to one another.

"We have collected some of the poetry and several schools have produced their own anthologies," says Mark. "Overall the feedback was very positive - so when we organised the next tour we asked the schools to pay half the cost!"

RSOs from around the region were invited to come and see Bernard at work and were largely impressed – in fact, North Yorkshire took on the idea to run alongside a road safety project.

The poetry initiative has recently obtained funding from the Children’s Fund for Kingston upon Hull, as it meets the Funds’ objectives for social inclusion and improving school standards.

Further details about this initiative can be obtained from Mark Jessop, 01482 612103 or, mark.jessop@hullcc.gov.uk