‘Paws’ for safety

Wed, Jan 4th 2006, 11:00

Play safe, stay safe was the lesson learned by children of Mead Primary School when Buster the Bear made an appearance.

Buster is the health and safety mascot of Redrow Homes, an award winning developer responsible for creating the Herons Reach development close to the Trowbridge school.

The friendly bear visited the school to meet the children and distribute copies of his ‘Buster Rules OK’ activity pack, which is filled with puzzles and jokes and has been designed to help children learn about the potential hazards on construction sites.

Lyssy Bolton, headteacher at Mead Primary School, says: “The children learned a lot from the Redrow safety talk, through the interaction with the bear mascot, dressing up like him and watching a video. Year one will be planning a visit to a Redrow site in the summer term to support their science work, learning about materials.”

Robin Scoot, senior health and safety manager for Redrow, says: “Buster and his activity packs are a great help to us. Health and safety is a top priority for Redrow and we are strongly committed to supporting education but it can be a struggle to keep the attention of children when you are trying to convey an important message. Buster raises awareness among children of the dangers of playing on building sites yet he does it in a fun and interesting way.”

Redrow has also made a big commitment to education by launching the Redrow Learning Web, an on-line resource which includes a teachers’ area to help plan lessons and guide their pupils, meets with National Curriculum requirements and has been accredited by the National Grid for Learning.

The Learning Web is split into two modules – ‘The House Detectives’, aimed at primary school children aged eight to 11, and ‘Plan It … Build It’, which is targeted at secondary school pupils aged 12 – 16 as part of their citizenship studies.

‘The House Detectives’ enables children to compare and contrast their own community with others around the UK, while ‘Plan It … Build It’ challenges pupils to research, plan and ‘build’ a new development taking into account a full range of issues such as housing supply, planning policy, environmental concerns and sustainability.

To discover the potential of The Redrow Learning Web visit www.education.redrow.co.uk