Motorists urged to slow down at Ballinderreen school

THE principal of a South Galway primary school is appealing to motorists to slow down after a number of “near misses” outside the building since September.

Ballinderreen National School is located between Kilcolgan and Kinvara and according to head of the school, Nichola Spokes, the current situation is “an accident waiting to happen”.
“In terms of safety, the school is on a main road. Although there are school traffic-calming lights, these are quite difficult to see and the speed of cars along this road is of great concern to the entire community. What was of concern was the amount of cars parking in around the school gate. This posed a problem when cars were pulling out after dropping a child off and when children were crossing the road at the same time. It was an accident waiting to happen,” she told The Clare Champion.
The principal has appealed to the local authority to address the situation by putting in footpaths but she claims, to date, there has been no response.
An acute awareness of road safety is necessary in the school and pupils are learning more about this as part of the An Taisce Green Schools campaign.
The children are currently working on achieving their fourth Green Flag for travel with a dual purpose, improving the environment and increasing safety.
“What this initiative has done for the kids is make them more aware of the dangers but more importantly, the power that we have to make others aware and what they in turn can do to help. The children are aware that the future of global warming is dependent on how they act now. They have taken on this initiative with great gusto and are maintaining it by walking to school everyday, regardless of the weather. As we say, there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. Every week we have a WOW Day, which stands for Walk Once a Week. They walk and get a leaf, which they place up on a tree in our classroom every time they walk. It’s a great incentive,”
Ms Spokes explained the background to their latest initiative.
“Getting this far has entailed a lot of work. In order to achieve the flag, the school must show that they are maintaining all the other flags – conserving heat and electricity, recycling and reusing and conserving water. Each classroom in the school has light wardens for checking the lights, litter wardens for checking that each classroom is recycling and separating waste properly and lastly, tap wardens to ensure that all taps are turned off,” she continued.
“In preparation for the travel flag, the children in my classes, fifth and sixth, conducted a walkability audit. This entailed walking along the close-by routes taken by children to school in the morning. We used a trundle wheel to count how many metres it was from each point to the school and we timed how long it would take to walk it. We focused in on three areas firstly, the pitch behind the school, then the local petrol station and lastly, Jordan’s Bar. At each of these three venues, there is adequate space for parking, where the children could be dropped off and then could walk from there to school in the form of a walking bus,” Ms Spokes explained.
“The idea is that congestion at the school gates would be reduced, making it safer and also that there would be less pollution caused by the emissions of car fumes,” she added.
The school officially launched its Park ’n Stride Day recently and all parents dropped their children off at the nearest one of the three dedicated points and the pupils walked from there to the school wearing high-visibility vests.
When the children arrived at the school, they were greeted with buns and hot chocolate.
Parents also played an important role in the event. Some walked along with the children in the morning while others helped by baking the buns and serving them to the classes that morning.
Following the success of the school’s Park ’n Stride Day, Ms Spokes is appealing to motorists to match the effort shown by the 148 pupils in improving road safety.
“Motorists travelling through the area should slow down, adhere to the warning lights and the speed limits,” Ms Spokes concluded.