THINK! Education Materials Evaluation: Interim Report Stage 1

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 resources, 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 site, including emails and leaflets sent to schools and digital marketing on the free teaching resources site and TES connect.

This report details the findings of Stage 1 of a full, formative evaluation of the THINK! Education resources. The broad objectives of the evaluation are to understand the impact that the resources have had on road safety education in England and to inform the DfT of any required changes to the programme going forward.

Stage 1 focussed on Early Years and Upper Primary resources, with Stage 2 intended to focus on Lower Primary resources in addition to the overall uptake of the resource set. This report is in relation to Stage 1 only.

Key findings:
• All settings reported an increase in awareness of road safety matters following usage of the resources, noted in particular by a greater awareness and tendency to talk about road safety when out on trips. This represents observational, anecdotal evidence only, but offers an encouraging indication of the potential impact of the resources on attitudes, behaviour and knowledge of road safety.

• At Early Years, some teachers also noted impacts on the development of other key skills such as communication and independent thinking due to the type of activities that were used to tackle the topic, as suggested in the lesson ideas section.

• At Upper Primary, high recall of key messages covered in sessions was observed. However, there was less evidence to support the long-term impact that sessions had had on children due to a higher degree of existing knowledge within this age group. New information that made the topic feel more relevant to children at Upper Primary age, such as that related to listening to MP3s or wearing hoods, was more likely to be recalled than information that children already knew, such as “stop, look, listen.”

• Anecdotal evidence was provided to support indications of impacts on parents’ knowledge at Early Years. Some children had spoken about road safety at home following their lesson, or spoken to their parents about the posters in the corridors.