Thank you for helping to keep our children safe.

Every now and then we need to remind ourselves to work together as a community to make sure our school site is as safe as it can possible be.

On the Truganina site we now have over 1600 children per day leaving a footprint. Many of them are constantly on the move along paths and roadways.

In Amici, some of them are not walking yet, others are toddling, and a very real fact is that at any moment a young child may dart out between two parked cars anywhere on the campus. Just because we can see an older student on the edge of a road, doesn’t mean we can see the little child next to them.

We have done some obvious things to help with driving safety; more traffic wardens, more pedestrian crossings, more parking, a reduced speed limit of 10km/h, more signage, more staff in vests, more communication and more listening to feedback.

But to make all this work safely we rely largely on the courtesy, patience and common-sense of those who choose to drive onto a site filled with children of all ages.

Unfortunately the ugly spectre of ‘road rage’ is not confined to other places. It is a societal problem that when some adults get behind the wheel of a car they change their personality and make poor choices, even though they are under the intense scrutiny of their children. Role-modelling doesn’t stop when inside a vehicle.

We have greatly appreciated:

• the smiles and waves to our often-freezing traffic wardens.
• the observance of the very slow 10 km/h speed limit (yes it’s deliberately about walking pace).
• the increased use of pedestrian crossings, rather than random road crossings.
• drivers changing their arrival times to help stagger the busy times and lessen peak traffic flow.
• drivers only parking in bays that are marked and reserved for them.
• drivers avoiding staff parks so that teachers can move quickly and efficiently between areas of the school at unusual times.
• drivers obeying all signage and directions
• drivers and pedestrians asking or signalling others to slow down

It only takes one thoughtless moment for all this to fall apart in the worst possible way.

So again, thank you for keeping our children safe.

Andrew McGregor – Associate Principal