Building awareness in primary age children
During a recent presentation to a group of school governors I was asked, “at what age can you start sharing street safe awareness skills with children?” The governor represented a primary school and was thinking about their 5-year-olds and above.
Street Safe Thinking is based on some basic foundation habits which focus on being aware and communications, essential skills in so much of life, and certainly support success in education. As such, why not start immediately, as a part of developing life skills. The challenge is to build those skills while avoiding scaring children and avoiding paranoia.
Here are some simple ideas which can be introduced across schools of all age groups.
Start with Art
It doesn’t even have to be in an art class, but start with art. The practise of looking at, properly looking at, a picture builds real benefits for life.
Of all our senses, sight is the dominant one. Processing what we see engages 25% of our brain and over 65% of our brain pathways. Our ability to make sense of what we see is dependent upon the brain’s processing power. Assuming that all our physical wiring within the brain is healthy and intact, turning visual inputs into meaningful imagery takes time. If we do not exercise and stretch our brains in the right way that processing speed will slow down or, in the case of children, fail to develop as much as it could.
So, start with art, because it allows teachers to present images which do not move and on which the class can concentrate for however long you have allocated. In older children you may talk about the artist’s style or composition but however good, or bad, that may be, encourage your pupils to look at the picture and describe what is going on. What is in the picture; who is in it; what are they doing; what time of day is it; how do we think the people feel, and what are they wearing, are all simple questions to start a discussion about the picture. Don’t just focus on the central image, encourage pupils to observe the corners, the dark or empty spaces and see what is going on. Such questions may lead to a discussion, a story, something creative or they may just be a stand-alone activity, a break between more focussed teaching.
This is not new thinking. We have done spot the difference games between pictures and spot the ball competitions for decades. Skilled tech savvy individuals identify photoshop work. What they all do is encourage the practise of observation and description which will help as surgeons, pilots, professional sportspeople, teachers, developing empathy, street safe awareness and the rest of life’s skills.
As the children move up through their schools, the pictures will change and the observations can become more thorough, supporting wider subjects such as the sciences and developing our ability to identify and understand the role of assumptions in our lives, for as Lemony Snicket says,
“Assumptions are dangerous things to make, and like all dangerous things to make — bombs, for instance, or strawberry shortcake — if you make even the tiniest mistake you can find yourself in terrible trouble. Making assumptions simply means believing things are a certain way with little or no evidence that shows you are correct, and you can see at once how this can lead to terrible trouble. For instance, one morning you might wake up and make the assumption that your bed was in the same place that it always was, even though you would have no real evidence that this was so. But when you got out of your bed, you might discover that it had floated out to sea, and now you would be in terrible trouble all because of the incorrect assumption that you’d made. You can see that it is better not to make too many assumptions, particularly in the morning.”
Energise your regular safety messages
Whenever you go on a flight there will be a safety briefing before take-off. At best, only 1 in 3 people listen to it. It’s probably the same for the last conference or meeting you attended when the majority of participants will have zoned out of any admin and safety announcement.
It is the same for children. If your school briefings are dull, pitched at adults rather than the children, and cover subjects outside their understanding then they too will fail, becoming a tick box exercise rather than a meaningful interaction.
Make your assembly announcements interesting and regular so that pupils are in the habit of hearing them. Identify how you can change and refresh your messages. This is not as onerous as it sounds. Making a change each month requires only 9 changes in any school year.
Integrate your messages with practical movement. Don’t just point out the exits, take pupils to them. Take them to the defibrillator and ensure they know what it is and how to get it down and take it to a classroom if needed. It may be possible to run small practical exercises on an irregular basis to make sure that each class is included at least annually.
Through this you will be building the habit of thinking about safety and security without mainlining it or allowing it to dominate thinking.
Practise Visualisation
Whenever you take your classes out, whether it be for a school visit, a nature walk or a sports competition try to build visualisation into your briefings.
Visualisation is the process of describing some thing or part of an event they may see/experience during the event. When pupils become accustomed to imagining forward or being alerted to something they should expect, they are more likely to notice it, or notice when something different happens.
Look out for one another
As soon as children become aware of others around them, you have the opportunity to build the habit of looking after each other. It will never replace your responsibility for your class but developing the habit amongst the pupils of noting when others are absent starts the lifelong skill of accounting for their team, group, family or friends. It also will help to start the habit of communicating, helping pupils to understand that they should notify others teachers when others are missing.
Good practice and habits don't need a badge
In good schools these practices will already be in place as part of their normal organisation. Such practices build habits in pupils and staff which will translate into life skills which will help them in whatever they do in the future. From our perspective they do, of course, support Street Safe Thinking but they don’t need to be put in place to wear that hat. The best security habit comes from the life skills of curiosity and awareness, and they support success in so much else.
