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Police and Emergency Services Minister Bob Wiese today commended students at both the Williams Primary School and the Darkan District High School for making their schools a safer place.
Mr Wiese said in recognition of the students' efforts to spot potential hazards and reduce injuries, their schools were presented with a Gold Spot Award.
Gold Spot Awards are presented to schools on behalf of WorkSafe Western Australia, as part of the State Government's ThinkSafe campaign. The schools are also involved in the Kidsafe WA's Safety Rules OK! program.
Mr Wiese said the awards recognised schools that followed the three ThinkSafe SAM steps which included; spotting hazards, assessing the risks and making the necessary changes.
"While the students at both schools played an outstanding part in this program, congratulations must also go to the staff and parents for their efforts in helping to create a safer environment," he said.
"Through this program, students in all 25 participating schools in the Narrogin education district, have learned many valuable lessons in safe thinking and behaviour.
"This will help them to deal with hazardous situations throughout life, and hopefully it will help avoid the pain, suffering and inconvenience of preventable injury and disease."
Mr Wiese said the students at the Williams Primary School started their Safety Rules OK! program by doing regular safety walks with their teachers, highlighting anything that could cause an injury, such as broken slabs, damaged equipment or pipes sticking out of the ground.
The students then repaired what they could and formulated special rules for areas that could not be immediately repaired.
"Williams Primary School also adopted the 'buddy system', where the older students look after the safety of the young students," Mr Wiese said.
"Special attention was given to the monkey bar,s where students seemed to be injured more often."
The students at Darkan District High School appointed two Year 9 students to introduce and co-ordinate the Safety Rules OK! program with the help of the Health Department's Injury Control Program and the Narrogin District Education Office.
The students were asked to spot and report anything unsafe and they adopted their own inhouse warning system by erecting red spot signs for unsafe areas and tortoise signs in go-slow areas.
The Year 10 students also gave presentations at assemblies, organised hazard spotting competitions and conducted workshops on playground safety with younger students.
Media contact: Mark Thompson (09) 222 9595
