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Teacher guide to road safety education

Cartoon of students waiting at traffic lights to cross.

This guide provides an overview of effective educational approaches, checklists of what children learn at each age band, and a few case studies.

It covers early childhood, primary and secondary education.


The aims of road safety education

Road safety education helps students contribute to everyone’s safety. Here's how.

Effective approaches to road safety education

Find out what is more effective, less effective and detrimental when it comes to road safety learning for school students.

Extending road safety learning

Includes questions to help you align road safety education to values, key competencies and citizenship.

Checklist: road safety in early childhood

Step-by-step list of what teachers and caregivers can model and explain to young children.

Case study of a kindergarten which runs carefully planned neighbourhood walks.

Checklist: road safety in Years 0-4

Overview of road safety education in the junior years of primary school.

Case studies: tamariki create te reo Māori picture books; students carry out science fair projects using bike track as context.

Checklist: road safety in Years 5-8

How children at this age learn to make safer decisions, and contribute through ideas and actions.

Case study: cross-curricular inquiry unit into local transport solutions.

Checklist: students in Years 9-11

A young person at this age regularly travels independently. Here's what whānau and teachers should keep an eye on.

Case study: Year 9 science students put forces and motion into action.

Checklist: students in Years 12-13

How to deepen young road users' critical thinking skills and support learner drivers.

Case studies: English lessons which involve analysis of road safety TV ads. Health students investigate the effects of prescription medicines on driving.

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