Life-skills+and+SEN+students

 **Road Safety for SEN students**



Road safety is an essential life skill that all children need to develop to be able to efficiently and effectively carry out day-to-day tasks. Without this knowledge, it is impossible to gain a sense of independence. It is an aspect of life that is often taken for granted. For an individual with a disability, I imagine road safety is an overwhelming concept that creates feelings of fear and anxiety. This is why it is important to understand that teachers are not merely educators of reading, writing and arithmetic. Teachers venture beyond this to prepare a student for what they will inevitably face outside school parameters.

The Brake Organisation (Link 1) in the United Kingdom is a valuable website and aid for educators to teach road safety to individuals with special learning needs. It contains true stories, factual information, campaigns and how schools and community groups can get involved in raising funds for road safety awareness. The following link is an introduction to teaching road safety that explains why it is an important life lesson for children to learn (Link 2).

For educational purposes, this website aims to provide activities and lesson plans to cater to various disabilities. It contains teaching tips broken up into age and content appropriateness. Online games and activities for early childhood and primary years are provided, which make learning road safety enjoyable, for example, recipes to bake traffic light biscuits (Link 3). The website also contains more in-depth aspects of road safety for older students, such as exploring the stories of road accident victims. A power-point presentation is also supplied that can be altered to the age group you are teaching. It aims to engage students in identifying, analysing and recalling important aspects of road safety for future experiences (Link 4).

This website recognises how crucial it is for all people, with or without a disability, to be educated in road safety. There is a section dedicated to teaching road safety to SEN students. This can be accessed via the following through Link 5. The Brake Organisation offers resources that can be applied to include all individuals with special needs. There is a section devoted to implementing practical roadside safety lessons and a fact sheet that explains the dangers that SEN students face when it comes to road safety and awareness. Teachers may refer to the link below as a guide to the different characteristics of disabilities such as ADHD/ADD, Autism and Dyslexia and then develop ways in which the activities can address such traits (Link 6).
 * __How__** __would this be utilised to teach SEN students?__

For example, a child with ADD or ADHD may be inclined to act without prior thought to assess risks and dangers. This may lead to running on to the road, being completely unaware of his or her surroundings. From this, a teacher could devise an activity/task to target this behaviour and ultimately reduce the risk of it occurring. It is important for an educator to understand each student as an individual. This involves knowing their interests and the understanding the purpose of the proposed activities to enable favourable responses.

By addressing these issues, certain activities can be used in a way that will gain a positive outcome depending on the disability. I would encourage teachers to collaborate and engage in co-teaching models to create workshops and practical lessons spanning across several classes. As a result, activities can be undertaken that are inclusive of all students to reach common goals for SEN and mainstream students alike.

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