A special award ceremony and seminar has marked the achievements of last year’s Junior Road Safety Officers (JRSO) and extended a warm welcome to this year’s new JRSOs.
Onthank, Lainshaw and Gargieston Primary Schools showcased the excellent road safety work they carried out last year. Their presentations were informative and provided the new JRSOs with some inspiration for the year ahead. Councillor Jim McMahon, Cabinet Member for Older People and Community Safety presented certificates to all of the 2016 JRSOs and school co-ordinators before presenting the main awards. Shortlees Primary School won Campaign of the Year for ‘Be Safe Be Seen This Halloween’. The JRSOs ran an enterprise initaitive selling glow sticks, reflective badges and lights. The pupils wore the badges and lights when they were out Trick or Treating and the glow sticks were a big hit at the school disco. Fenwick Primary School won Notice Board of the Year. The JRSO team ensured that the noticeboard was in a prime location where pupils, teachers and parents could easily see it. They updated it every month and included personal tips on how to keep safe, like wear bright clothing to make sure you are visible when walking home. Kimberly Barr from Barshare PS won Co-ordinator of the Year. She was nominated by the school’s JRSOs because “she is always super organised. She has helped to make road safety cool and popular in our school.” Kimberly bought resources herself to ensure every child in the school could participate in activities free of charge. Lainshaw Primary School won School of the Year. JRSOs Aimee Sharp and Katie Paterson, with help from the school’s co-ordinator Mrs LeMasurier, were recognised for their hard work throughout last year raising awareness of road safety. The JRSOs took a whole school approach to road safety and ensured that everyone felt involved. After the formal awards the new and old JRSOs visited road safety stalls. Craig Marshall from Police Scotland and Paul Timmons from Scottish Fire and Rescue talked to the pupils about road safety and let the pupils try on their uniforms, which the young people loved. Michaella Mullen from East Ayrshire Leisure was on hand to provide advice about how pupils could put on a road safety play within their school. While GIST, the haulage company, brought an HGV for pupils to sit in and explained the importance of road safety near to HGVs. The pupils loved sitting in the HGV and seeing road safety from an HGV driver’s point of view. Councillor McMahon said: “The JRSO awards and road safety seminar was a great day. By bringing together old and new JRSOs the pupils were inspired and enthused by the projects that ran last year. “I was delighted to present the trophies to the overall winners and certificates to all the JRSOs. Their achievements have been excellent and their enthusiasm was really contagious. The new JRSOs left with lots of fundraising ideas like making traffic light biscuits, road safety badges and key rings. Any money the pupils raise will be used to buy prizes for competitions and road safety resources. “I can’t wait to see what the JRSOs achieve this year.”
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