Back to School: Constable Care’s Safety Tips

School’s back! Start 2025 with safety first

School has returned for 2025, and Constable Care Foundation is reminding WA parents and motorists about road safety and risks and children across the state resume classroom learning this week. It’s a great opportunity to talk with your children about how to safely get to and from school, and to consider your position and responsibilities as a motorist, especially around schools and school zones.

At the beginning of a new school year, children are often excited to see their friends and meet their classmates and teachers, but are not yet in a regular routine – this can lead to distractions and risk of danger or injury. It’s crucial to have a conversation with them about safety, and equip them with the skills and knowledge to keep themselves safe, as passengers, pedestrians, cyclists, and on public transport.

Here are Constable Care Foundation’s Back to School Safety Tips for 2025:

Getting To School

• Ensure your children are familiar with the way they most regularly get to school, and they know the safest route, including places to cross roads, meet parents and caregivers, or wait
• Remind children that when riding to school, helmets are a must – they should be wearing a properly fitted helmet that meets Australian standards
• Wait for public transport in designated safe areas and remember to check the road or platform before stepping off
• Use pedestrian crossings, look both ways, and follow traffic signals. Children riding to school should dismount and walk their bike across the road
• Avoid walking or riding too near to buses, cars, or blind spots, including between parked cars and verge gardens/trees

Personal Safety

• Talk with your children about protective behaviours, and remind them not to talk with strangers or accept lifts home in private vehicles with people they don’t know, unless it has been pre-organised
• Create an easy to remember special code word that can be used when someone else is organised to collect your child from school
• Be conscious of what you post online, and consider blocking out the name of their school in pictures of your children wearing their school uniforms or in front of their schools. Where possible, avoid posting pictures of the child’s year, name of their teacher, or with any other identifiers
• Lock down your online privacy settings and only share pictures of your children with people you know and trust
• Be conscious of the privacy preferences of other families, and ensure they are aware of yours

Children Online

• Ensure the devices your children are using have the appropriate parental controls
• Reinforce online safety messaging, such as children not giving out private details of their identities or lives, including photographs
• Remind your children that not everyone online is who they claim to be – talk with them about friending strangers on online platforms
• Have conversations about cyberbullying and the importance of not only being kind to others online, but what to do if someone is being unkind to them online

Situational Awareness

• Be alert around driveways, both as motorists and pedestrians. Ensure you can see your children, or they are being supervised, before you turn on your car. Separate play areas from your driveway to reduce the risk of incidents. Wait and check when crossing behind cars in driveways in case they move unexpectedly.
• Obey road rules as a motorist and adhere to speed limits
• Use designated drop-off and pick-up zones and avoid blocking roads nearby to the areas

With school returning, drivers are being warned to slow down, be aware of their surroundings around their own driveways, schools and school zones and stay off mobile phones. WA Police will be enforcing the 40km per hour speed limit in school zones.

It is also an opportune time for teachers to utilise the Constable Care Safety School, which has helped over 40,000 primary school children learn vital road safety skills that could one day save their life.

“Teachers can play their part in ensuring 2025 is a safe one for their young charges by booking a ‘must-do’ school excursion at our world-class facility,” CEO Ian Anstee advised. “Children learn bike, pedestrian and public transport safety skills in a safe environment, potentially leading to fewer injuries in children travelling to and from school.”

For more information visit www.constablecare.com.au