THINK! Primary Education Materials Evaluation: Interim Report Final Stage

In September 2009, the DfT launched a suite of education materials to help schools, road safety officers and out-of-school groups teach road safety to children of Early Years and Primary age.

The programme offers a host of digital and print resources, and ideas for off-line activities, organised according to key stage and audience type, including parents. A number of methods have been used to actively promote the resources, including emails and leaflets sent to schools and digital marketing on the free teaching resources website and TES connect.

EdComs was commissioned in June 2010, to conduct an evaluation of the DfT’s THINK! Education resources in two stages according to the launch date of specific sections. The evaluation aimed to assess the success and impact of the programme against key performance indicators including awareness, uptake, quality and understanding.

Key findings relating to THINK! Education resources include:
• Awareness of the THINK! Education resources was high, particularly among road safety officers.
• The resources were seen as appropriate for the age groups they were aimed at in the settings for which they were developed.
• Perceptions of how engaging the resources were varied between teachers/group leaders and road safety officers.
• The most important determining factor for which road safety resources teachers, group leaders and RSOs chose to use was quality.