School kids in South Tyneside have been learning about safety on the Tyne and Wear Metro.
Nexus, the public body which owns and manages Metro, ran the interactive sessions with year six pupils from 32 schools across the borough – part of an annual programme of promoting Metro safety in schools.
Platform safety and the dangers of trespass are key messages.
The safety messages are broken down for the children to understand by using a life sized board game where the kids have to select the answers on a series floor panels.
The Reducing Accidents at Play (RAP) event saw 1,300 children attend a range of safety workshops at South Shields Fire Station.
The pupils were split into small groups for themed sessions which included road safety, railway safety, sea safety, the dangers of electricity, and health and wellbeing awareness.
Nexus Youth Liaison Officer, Deborah Rodenby, said: “This is all about getting children to and from school safely.
“I get the safety message across to them in a fun and interactive way. The board game has a series of circles on the floor and they have to stand on what they think is the right answer. Whether they get that right or wrong, the main thing is that they learn the safety message from it, and they learn what things on the Metro are dangerous.
“One of the main things that I cover is platform safety. We stress that we don’t want children playing near the edges of the platforms.
“I see thousands of school children every year as part of our programme to promote safety. The ages range from as young as nursery classes all the way up to year twelve. I cover safety on Metro and all types of public transport.”
Every year Nexus promotes public transport safety to between 13,000 and 15,000 school children across the five districts of Tyne and Wear.
