Dringhouses Primary School pilots new road safety approach

Pupils in York are being asked ‘should you sack your chauffeur?’ as part of a drive to improve pedestrian safety at school gates.

Dringhouses primary is one of a number of schools that are piloting the scheme and are holding short assemblies to launch it this week (w/c 26 February).


The children will be shown examples of poor driving habits, illustrated in a lighthearted way, but with the intention that they will help to encourage their parents to drive and park more considerately.

Currently, the council receives frequent and numerous complaints about unsafe driving and parking outside schools. This partnership approach with schools aims to involve young passengers to encourage their drivers to behave in a more responsible way around the school, making it safer and more pleasant for everyone.

In addition, parking awareness road sign characters will be loaned to the schools and located to best influence driver behaviour. The campaign will be supported by monitoring and enforcement against illegal and inconsiderate parking.

If the pilot proves successful, it will be rolled out to other primary schools areas where inconsiderate driving and parking have been identified as a particular concern.

Gill Williams, headteacher of Dringhouses Primary School, said: “Inconsiderate and dangerous parking and driving during morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up times is a constant problem for our school.   There are road markings outside school to deter cars from parking close to the school gates, however a small minority of parents still choose to park on these lines or use the entrance to the school gates to drop off or do a U-turn.  It is only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured.

“We very much welcome this new safety initiative and hope that, by engaging the children in a fun and creative way, the importance of road safety awareness will be raised.”

Primary school allocations issued today

Today (Monday 18 April), primary school admission figures are published for entry in September 2016 and City of York Council is pleased to announce School childrenthat 94.4 per cent of York children have got their first preference and that 98.5 per cent got one of their first three preferences.

The percentage of children achieving their first preference has increased by 2.1 per cent between 2015 and 2016.

The number of online applications for primary school places has continued to increase. Parents who applied online will be notified of their child’s place by email at 10am today, letters are being posted today to parents and those with online accounts can log in to the council’s parent portal at www.york.gov.uk/parentportal.

In 2016 all children within the local authority area have secured a primary school place. The majority of children got one of their first three preferences; with the number of children whose preferences were not able to be met being reduced from 36 in 2015 to 27.

To meet growing demand for places in the west of York, 15 additional places were created by working with Acomb Primary School. Meanwhile, work continues in Southbank to meet a forecast growth in demand for places in the area.

This year’s admissions figures, compared with last year’s are outlined below:

2015

2016

qty

%

qty

%

1st

1828

92.3%

1853

94.4%

2nd

83

4.2%

71

3.6%

3rd

26

1.3%

10

0.5%

4th

4

0.2%

1

0.1%

5th

3

0.2%

0

0.0%

Placed outside preferences

36

1.8%

27

1.4%

Total

1980

100.0%

1962

100.0%

Applied Online

1706

86.2%

1795

91.5%