This lesson can be adapted for children in key stages 1 or 2 and involves teacher-led group discussions. Follow-on activities include a road safety postcard to colour and take home and an extended discussion about rules in the Highway Code to protect people who walk and ride.
Road safety on the curriculum
Under new statutory guidance for RSE and Health Education, from September 2026, all primary and secondary schools are required to teach pupils about road safety under personal safety in the health and wellbeing section of the curriculum. For primary schools, this includes how to recognise risk and keep safe around roads.
This lesson plan is a great way to teach young people about road safety in a fun and engaging way, and will help you work towards your learning goals.
Adapting lessons for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND)
Road safety education and training should be appropriate and effective for pupils of all ages and abilities, including those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
When adapting lessons, please be aware of pupils’ individual requirements and adapt lessons to fit their needs. Use visual aids and sensory play to help pupils learn and understand the connection between road danger and their own safety. Focus on road safety basics, such as holding hands with a grown up when walking near roads, how to cross roads at safe crossing places and always wearing a seat belt/sitting in a child seat when travelling by car.
Differentiation activity for this lesson
Show pictures of different people who use roads, or use soft toys and model vehicles. Talk about how vehicles are heavy and hard and will hurt people if they hit them. Talk about how the biggest vehicles are the hardest and heaviest. If you have a car parked in a safe place on school premises, away from roads, you could let pupils poke the car and feel how hard and heavy it is, then poke their tummies and feel how soft they are. Explain that our bodies are fragile and easily hurt by traffic. Explain why it is important to be as safe as possible when using roads.
Background information for this lesson plan
All children and young people use roads, and many have experienced road danger. Children’s health and lifestyles are also often heavily influenced by their family’s travel choices and local road safety.
It’s never a nice fact to hear, but road crashes are the leading cause of death for children and young people worldwide, and seven children are killed or seriously injured on UK roads every day.
Whoever we are and however we travel, we all share our roads when we are on the move, and we all have the right to make safe and healthy journeys.
This means it's important to use roads safely, to protect ourselves and each other, so that everyone is safer on our roads.
Using roads safely
We all make mistakes sometimes, and if we make a mistake on a road the consequences can be really serious. The good news is that a few small changes can make a big difference.
The choices we make can help us protect ourselves and each other on our roads.
For people who walk and wheel, this means using pavements and cycle paths safely, obeying the rules of the road, paying attention when crossing roads and crossing at safe places.
For parents and carers, this means holding children’s hands when walking near roads, crossing road at safe places and always using a child seat when travelling by car.
For people who drive and ride, this means pledging to drive and ride as safely as possible, keeping to safe speeds, avoiding distractions and never driving or riding when impaired by drugs or alcohol.
The Highway Code is very clear that those with the potential to do the most harm on roads have the greatest responsibility to protect people who are more vulnerable than them.
Safe road use is an important part of the safe system approach to road safety – a shared approach to prevent death and serious injury from road crashes.
Preparation
Print and cut out pictures of different road users and key words. For the group discussions, give each group a set of pictures.
You could also find pictures of different types of road users in books, or gather toy figures and vehicles to show as may different types of road user as you can.
Click on the links below to download pictures of different road users and key words. There is also a letter you can send to parents and carers about your Road Safety Week activities.
Resources
Road user pictures (8 images to a page)
Click here to download and print
Road user flashcards
Click here to download and print
Road user pictures (single image to a page)
Click here to download and print
A road safety postcard to colour and take home
Click here to download and print
Road safety colouring sheet
Click here to download and print
Letter to parents
Click here to download and print
Explain to the class that you are taking part in Road Safety Week and you are going to be talking about using roads safely.
Talk to children about how they use roads. For example, they might walk or wheel, cycle or scoot to school, or travel as passengers in a car, on a motorbike, or on a bus or tram.
Ask them to think about other people they see – for example, people who walk, ride, scoot, use a wheelchair or mobility scooter, ride horses, push a pushchair, drive a car, bus, lorry, van, ambulance, tram, lorry, etc.
Make it fun: Designate spaces around the classroom for different modes of transport – walk, cycle, car, etc. Ask children to move to the space that represents how they travelled to school today. Then ask them to move again if they have travelled in a different way this week, or at the weekend etc. Explain that most people use roads in lots of different ways.
Show pictures of different types of road users on the smartboard
Ask children to count how many different ways they have travelled. Create a tally on the smartboard to record how many different modes of transport you have used across the class. Emphasise again that we travel in lots of different ways and we share our roads with lots of different people and vehicles.
Talk about why road safety is important
Explain to children that, while it's not a nice fact to hear, every day children are hurt on roads. That's why it's important that we all use roads safely, to help keep ourself safe and protect other people.
Unfortunately, some people are in greater danger of being hurt on roads than others. This includes people who walk and wheel, and people who ride a bike, horse or motorbike.
People who drive are more likely to cause harm than people who walk, wheel or ride. People who drive the biggest vehicles can cause the most harm.
Part 2: Group discussions
Divide the class into small groups. Distribute a set of road user pictures and flashcards to each group of children.
Ask children to talk about how we can use roads safely. Ask them to think about some of the different ways people who walk or wheel, drive or ride can protect themself and how they can protect some of the other people they share the road with.
Here are some facts you could share to help them get started:
- Traffic is heavy and hard and can hurt us very badly if it hits us. Our bodies are soft and easily damaged.
- People who walk, wheel and ride don't have any protection around their bodies.
- A cycle helmet will help protect your head if you fall off your bike or get hit by a car.
- People who walk and ride need safe footpaths, cycle paths and safe places to cross roads.
- If we are walking, we should pay attention when we cross roads.
- If we are cycling, we should stay on safe paths away from traffic, wear a helmet to protect our head, and always use a light if cycling when it's dark.
- Drivers should travel at safe speeds, and must never use their phone when driving.
- The faster a vehicle is travelling, the longer it will take to stop. Vehicles travelling at faster speeds cause more damage if they crash.
- In places where there are safe paths away from traffic and where traffic is slow, more people walk or cycle.
- The people who drive the biggest vehicles must take extra care to protect people who are more vulnerable than them.
Ask each group to explain one way they can protect themself and one way they could protect someone else.
Part 3: Follow-on activity – A road safety postcard to colour and take home
Children will send a road safety postcard home to parents and carers, asking them to help them use roads safely.
- Explain to the children that they are going to take a postcard home to their grown up(s) to ask them to keep them safe near roads.
- Show the children the postcard and talk to them about the pictures on the postcard. Depending on ability, ask the children to read the messages aloud, or read the messages to them.
- Ask children to colour in the postcard and write their name on the front and back.
- Ask them to think about who they want to send the postcard to, and to write their name on the back too. Ask them to give the postcard to their grown up. Explain that they can tell their grown up there is an important message to read and ask them to display the postcard proudly to show that they understand the importance of keeping children safe near roads.
- Explain that you will also be sending a letter home to tell parents and carers about the postcard.
Note: you may need to remind children that they cannot put this postcard in a letter box, unless they put it in a stamped, addressed envelope!
Part 4: Follow-on activity – Extended discussion about rules in the Highway Code to protect people who walk and ride
- Explain that the Highway Code is a set of rules for everyone who uses roads and it is written to help keep us all safe. Explain that there are special rules to protect people who walk, cycle and ride horses. Ask pupils to tell you what rules they would like to keep them safe when they are walking or cycling.
- Explain that one of the rules is about something called a HIERARCHY OF ROAD USERS.
- Write the word HIERARCHY on the whiteboard and explain that a hierarchy is a system to arrange things in order of importance. It is often used when we talk about people in power in an organisation.
- Explain that the hierarchy of road users has been created to protect people who walk and ride.
This is how it works:
- People who are most likely to be hurt in a crash need the most protection. This includes people who walk or wheel, and people who ride a bicycle, horse or motorbike.
- People who drive vehicles that can cause the most harm need to take extra care to protect other people. This means drivers of big vehicles (lorries and buses), vans and minibuses, cars and taxis.
- People who ride a bicycle, horse or motorbike need to use roads safely to protect people who walk.
- Everyone needs to use roads safely to protect themself and others.
Using the pictures of different road users, ask children to arrange the road users in order to show who is most at risk and needs most protection, and who is most likely to cause harm and needs to take the greatest responsibility.
Explain that there are lots of rules in the Highway Code that protect people who walk and cycle but we all still need to use roads safely, whoever we are and however we travel. This includes: crossing roads carefully at safe places, walking on safe paths with a grown up, cycling on safe paths away from traffic, always sitting in a special child seat when travelling by car, paying attention and not using their phones or chatting to friends when crossing roads.
Other resources you can use to support this lesson
Road safety films by Brake
- We love to cycle – A short, animated film for primary schoolchildren to show the benefits of cycling and how to stay as safe as possible when riding a bike. Watch on YouTube.
- Highway Code rules to protect people who walk and ride – A short animation that explains the hierarchy of road users and other important rules to protect our most vulnerable road users. Watch on YouTube.
- Road safety heroes – A short animation about the people who help us make safer journeys and support people after a road crash. Watch on YouTube.
- Speed matters with Maddie Moate – A short film by Brake to help children understand how and why they view roads differently and why it is so important for drivers to keep their speed down in places where people live. It gives a simple introduction to kinetic energy and stopping distances, and ends with the children talking about what they would like grown-ups to do to help keep them safe near roads. Watch on YouTube.
- Safe systems is child's play – This short animation explains how the design of cities and towns, roads, public transport systems and vehicles can enable us all to make safe and healthy journeys. Watch on YouTube.