Education Reporter Lyn Barton examines a unique scheme to help children and their parents stay safe on the roads.

A BRADFORD SCHOOL is stepping out in a bid to cut down the number of people injured in road accidents with a unique book.

Undercliffe Primary School will be the first in the district to receive a copy of Stepping Forward Together, a unique book aimed at people who speak English as a second language.

Head teacher Liz Metcalfe says it takes road safety out of the classroom and encourages a family approach.

"A lot of children do not have any road sense," said Mrs Metcalfe.

"Sometimes it is harder for them to gain that knowledge particularly if their mums have recently arrived from South East Asia where there simply isn't the volume of traffic and they can find it quite disorientating."

The book contains photographs of real-life road scenes in Bradford and Keighley.

But the photos are for the audience only and on the flip side is text, including key words in Urdu, so that the teacher can explain what is happening.

Mrs Metcalfe hopes it will help children better understand the danger posed by roads.

But, she said, often parents are in need of a lesson in road safety themselves.

"We have terrible problems outside school. Sometimes we have parents triple parked when they come to pick their children up.

"A few years ago one of our pupils was injured outside the school gates because of it. Fortunately he was not seriously hurt."

Mrs Metcalfe has started taking unusual measures in a bid to ram the message home.

Staff have been known to collect registration numbers of cars dangerously parked outside the school on Undercliffe Old Road and include them in their regular newsletter.

"We put something like, 'could the owner of car registration number whatever please refrain from parking in front of the school gates.'"

And she has taken it a step further again by occasionally stepping outside herself armed with the school camera to take pictures of dangerous parking.

"That certainly works," said Mrs Metcalfe.

Stepping Forward Together has been produced entirely by road safety officers at Bradford Council.

Bradford Area North Panel has provided the funding to reproduce the book so that every primary school in its area can eventually have a copy.

Undercliffe Ward Councillor, Bob Sowman, said it was an important part of the fight to cut the number of children hurt on the region's roads.

"The Stepping Forward Together book is unique in that it has been entirely developed by officers from the Council in partnership with parents and schools.

"If we can reduce the number of youngsters injured on our roads by getting the road safety message across at an early age, then this is the sort of initiative we must support," said Coun Sowman.

"The book is excellent and should be essential reading for anyone associated with the education of road safety for young people."

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