How to run an event in a Primary School

Feb 19

Written By SADD

SADD is for all road users and as we have said many times before...everyone uses the roads in one way or another. We think it’s never too early to learn about Road Safety! Parvi Goundar from Tauranga Girls’ College chatted to us about when her school’s SADD group ran an event in their local primary school.

What made your SADD group decide to run an event for your sister primary school?

Well we were thinking of a Term 4 event and we all collectively decided it should be a community activity, instead of doing it at school for our peers. The police were unfortunately too busy to partake in an event with us but I remembered our school did activities with our primary school. We thought that this would be perfect as they are right next to us and they would learn about SADD and then when they come to college they will have an interest or at least knowledge of SADD, and may join. We also thought it was an opportunity for them to learn road safety as both pedestrians and passengers.

Tell us about what activities you ran for this event?

We set up an obstacle course where each aspect had a different road rule incorporated into it. For example, they had to around a hula hoop 3 times and had to stick their hand out to exit, showing kids how to signal when leaving a roundabout. We had a tarp which represented water, and showed them how they had to travel slower on the water (we were actually going to put water on the tarp but we thought it might be unsafe). We also had a Heads or Tails game where we told kids some stats around dangerous driving and asked them to put their hands or their heads if it was true and on their waist, if it's false. Lastly, we had a memory game where kids had to work together to remember all the objects on our table - all items that have something to do with road safety.

Why do you think that involving young students is important for road safety?

They are impressionable and learn bad habits from parents or perhaps older siblings. If they are misinformed, they will grow up not knowing the proper road rules and may choose to neglect the proper rules since that is what they’ve grown up with, and what has been normalised. So by educating and informing young students with the correct information, they will be able to become good drivers when they’re older and unlearn bad habits. Perhaps young students can even influence or change their parents/older siblings driving habits to better ones. Ideally they can also be more road smart themselves and be good examples in their communities.

What was some of the highlights for your group running this event?

The students learning something new and properly engaging with our events. I had kids tell me that they had learnt something new or had corrected others on their misconceptions with proper explanations without me saying anything. It made me feel like we had done our job properly and that the kids weren’t just having fun but were also learning valuable information. 2 kids told me that they can’t wait to go to college to join the SADD committee which filled me with pride.

What advice would you give to another school or SADD group wanting to reach out and run something in a local primary school?

Make sure you first have enough lollies for everyone. Having a prize for one group doesn’t usually go down well, and having an incentive engages more kids and makes them interact or get involved when they otherwise had no motivation or intention of doing so. Make sure that the activities you prepare are simple yet have something to do with road safety. Also making sure that you have events where kids are physical, so obstacle courses are the way to go.

Here’s what Rochelle Jensen - Principal of Gate Pa Primary, had to say about the event:

“Many thanks to Parvi and the Tga Girls' College SADD (Students Against Dangerous Driving) crew for organising lunchtime entertainment for our tamariki.

The entertainment involved over 30 tamariki rotating around fun and challenging games including cardboard car races and memory games.

A great display of tuakana-teina. A big thank you to the TGC crew for their initiative and enthusiasm. Looking forward to continued collaboration with our neighbours.”