Community-minded Bulldogs players Connor Tracey, Karl Oloapu and Viliame Kakau visited the children and educators at Young Academics Pendle Hill to help to bring the road safety message to life through a series of age-appropriate games, storytelling activities, role playing, seatbelt safety demonstrations and workshops on traffic signs and crossing the road safely.
Their efforts, together with those of Young Academics’ educators, will be used in a social media campaign which will help remind Young Academics’ families, and the broader community, to remain vigilant whenever children are around cars, roads, and driveways and to reinforce the fact that children are never too young to start learning about road safety.
Jenni Gaffney, Director of Operations at Young Academics, thanked the Bulldogs players for volunteering and taking the time to engage with the children on such an important issue.
“Children are naturally curious, excitable, fast moving and often unable to assess risk, which makes them particularly vulnerable,” she said.
“Unfortunately, whilst schools have mandatory 40km zones, there is currently no such safety provision for childcare centres in NSW, so it is critical for us to do everything we can to teach our children how to behave safely around roads, and to remind families to always hold their child’s hand when crossing the road, walking alongside the road, or when dropping their child off, or picking them up for childcare or preschool.”
Bulldogs drive home Road Safety message
THE Young Academics Early Learning Centre has teamed up with the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs for Road Safety Week to create a new road safety campaign for the children in its care, and their families.