AISNSW Approach to Road Safety Education

Road Safety Education (RSE) in schools plays a major role in shaping students’ attitudes and behaviours as responsible drivers, passengers, pedestrians and cyclists. AISNSW is committed to supporting teachers to implement quality RSE in their classrooms and schools. Since RSE in schools commenced in 1986, there has been greatly improved awareness amongst young people of ways in which they can stay safe on and around roads. RSE is embedded in both the NSW PDHPE K-10 and Stage 6 syllabuses.

In addition, there are further opportunities for RSE messages to be addressed through a school’s Student Wellbeing Program, whole-school activities such as assemblies as well as through a range of other subjects such as English, Mathematics, Geography and Science & Technology.

Our Aims

We aim to support and enhance RSE in schools within the independent sector by: 

  • increasing awareness amongst schools of the need for quality RSE
  • emphasising the importance of a whole-school approach in which staff, parents, carers and communities work together to create a supportive environment for students to learn, understand and practise road safety
  • fostering practices for the delivery of best-practice RSE that is directly linked to syllabus requirements and whole-school programs
  • ensuring that K-12 students are given consistent road safety messages by both teachers and families
  • providing schools with timely, relevant resources and information about the latest road safety campaigns and initiatives
  • working collaboratively with Transport for NSW to support their RSE Program, including the development of quality teaching and learning resources for teachers to use in schools

Our Guiding Principles

Our approach is guided by the following principles:

  • effective RSE requires a whole-school approach whereby it is implemented both within the curriculum and also in other school programs, policies and initiatives that involve parents, carers and the wider local community
  • quality RSE teaching and learning adopts a strengths-based approach which affirms that students have particular strengths and resources that can be nurtured to improve their own and others’ health, safety and wellbeing
  • RSE programs need to be embedded within a curriculum framework that provides timely, developmentally appropriate and ongoing RSE for all year levels
  • student-centred, interactive strategies based upon localised, contextualised concepts and content best develop students’ knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivation and behaviours regarding road safety
  • students are an important resource in supporting and influencing their peers positively as a way of improving road safety behaviour
  • staff play a critical role in modelling appropriate road safety behaviour and attitudes consistent with the school’s road safety guidelines
  • engaging parents, carers and local communities as partners in RSE encourages them to provide authentic opportunities for children and young people to practise the road safety skills developed in the classroom and school