St. John's Addresses Road Safety Issues

For many years, members of the school community have worked together to promote good road safety practice. While the location of the school is essentially rural, it is situated on the crossroads of an 'A' road with a country road (which in its turn is used as a 'rat-run' for avoiding the Hindhead bottleneck).

With no dedicated school parking, parents park in a variety of locations and then accompany their children across one or two busy roads.

Improvements, which have resulted from this attention to road safety issues, have included operating a staggered opening time, obtaining permission from the local pub for parents to use their car park, and the re-installation of flashing lights. After many years of consultations with Churt Parish Council and SCC a zebra crossing over the busy A287 was finally built in 2007.

In 2005 the school undertook further research and consulted with a wide range of individuals and representative bodies, in preparation for submitting bids to both Surrey County Council ('Safer Routes to Schools Challenge') and to a national road safety initiative ('Safe and Sound').

The bid submitted to the 'Safe and Sound' initiative was successful, resulting in a grant of £6000; St John's was the only school in Surrey to receive the award. Advice has been provided by a traffic consultant on the best ways to spend the money.

In liaison with SCC Traffic and Road Safety Group  the School also teamed up with the Theatre Exchange Ltd to write and produce a series of road safety workshops. The drama workshops at the school aimed to improve the childrens' road safety skills. A portion of the Safe and Sound grant funded this event.

The grant was also used to produce some road safety leaflets for new parents which are distributed at the start of their first school year.. The booklet was written and illustrated by the children themselves.

In an attempt to encourage drivers to slow down while travelling through the village some of the grant was spent on new, more prominent school signs.

The Senior Road Safety Officer, Cheryl de Suis stated in a press release that 'the pupils, parents and staff have worked extremely hard to highlight the importance of road safety within the community'.

Support has also been forthcoming from Surrey County Council. A lollipop man was appointed, and with support from Cheryl de Suis the school instigated a Walking Bus scheme in 2000. Children can continue to be dropped off at a specified time at the parking area at Churt tennis courts in the recreation ground and are accompanied to school by a group of parents, while wearing brightly coloured tabards. Parents are welcome to join the 'Bus'! Children are issued with 'bus tickets' and this healthy and happy start to the day is a lot less stressful!

We are grateful for the sponsorship of these tabards and baseball caps by the Volvo Garage in 2004 and by the Mercedes Benz Garage in 2007.

In May 2006 after consultation with Churt Parish Council and SCC a questionnaire was sent by Angela Harper to parents to relate the latest proposals for traffic calming in Churt.  93% of families agreed for the need for a zebra crossing. It was also proposed to fill in the bus lay by, slightly narrowing the road near the entrance  to the recreation ground thus giving a better sight line when turning left towards Hindhead. These changes were finally made in 2007.

The image shown opposite shows the Walking Bus participants crossing the busy A287 on a lovely spring morning before the zebra crossing was built.

A zebra crossing was at last installed in August 2007 and an interactive speed sign erected at the North end of the village in January 2009. This is intended to remind drivers that they have entered a 30mph zone.

In April 2006 the school took up the Golden Boot Challenge in which the children were each given a Travel Diary for one month and were encouraged to change to a more 'greener' mode of travelling to School.

We have been delighted to see over thirty children on the 'Walking Bus' some days and there has been a lot more car sharing and walking or cycling to school. Mr Luckham talked to the pupils about road safety.

Three cheers for FOX CLASS won the 'GOLDEN BOOT AWARD' which they now keep in their classroom.

In 2007 the challenge was repeated with the diary recordings replaced by on line entering of results!

The winning class who changed to a more greener mode of travel was FOX CLASS!

This was again repeated in 2008 and the winning class was BADGER CLASS who showed a 38% change to a more greener mode of travel!!

WELL DONE BADGERS!!

We all really enjoyed the visit from Freddie the Fox!

In 2008 we began consultations with Churt  Parish Council to improve the walking access for pedestrians along the narrow Hale House Lane. 

We will be consulting with parents and Surrey police to minimise parking on the junction of this road with the A287. These bad parking habits greatly restrict the visibility for parents walking from the pub car park, up the road to cross over the zebra crossing.

We will keep you posted of developments!

The children have always been very involved in our road safety campaigns!

In June 2009 we again took part in the Golden Boot challenge along with other Surrey schools.

The children in Badger Class won again and showed a 69% increase in green travel over a monthly period from July 09.

WELL DONE BADGERS!!

Staff and children wearing the new tabards sponsored by Mercedes Benz in 2007.