Students reminded to ‘forget me not’ with road safety flowers

A secondary school in Tendring is reminding students to ‘forget me not’ during the Covid-19 pandemic with road safety flowers.

Last year, the Safer Essex Roads partnership, (SERP) arranged for  over 11,000 year 9 students to see a performance of ‘Perfect’ a road safety production  performed by the theatre company, Ginificent.

After the performance, students were all given a packet of ‘Forget Me Not’ seeds to take home to encourage further discussion about the messages from the road safety play with parents/carers and to then plant them. With the closure of schools, SERP has been unable to continue with the theatre in education.

Donna Byford, student support advisor at Ormiston Rivers Academy, said: “I had a few seed packets in my office, which were left over after having the road safety workshop last year.

“It seemed very appropriate whilst we were away from school to offer them to our students as a way of letting them know we haven’t forgotten about them and as a reminder of road safety.

“I emailed all our students to let them know that if they were passing the school on their daily exercise they could collect a packet of seeds to plant and nurture whilst at home. 

“The uptake was amazing and within a couple of days the packets of seeds were collected.”

Donna Bond, road safety technician, said: “During this strange time of COVID 19, whilst out on my bike around the village I started to notice lots of tiny blue flowers out in bloom.

“It then dawned on me where all these flowers must have come from. These are a reminder that staying safe on the roads in Essex is important for all, whether you are a pedestrian, cyclist or car driver.”

26 May 2020