Brook Community Primary School were presented with their prize last Friday 11 July, after winning the Safety In Action Fortnight prize for the second year running.

Cllr Claughton, portfolio holder for community safety, was on hand to present the trophy and £100 prize to the pupils: “The children all really enjoyed themselves at the workshops and, more importantly, all learned a lot from it. It was a very productive fortnight and this is mainly down to the hard work and effort that was put in by Community Safety Unit and the volunteers who helped to make it such a great success.”

David Lloyd, Ashford Borough Council’s Community Safety Manager, said: “It’s a great opportunity for us to be able to offer some life skills to the Year 6 pupils who, in September, will be leaving their comfort zone and starting life at a large, secondary school. This can be a daunting experience so one of our key objectives was to help them with this transition.”

Safety In Action Fortnight, an initiative by the Community Safety Unit, consisted of a series of workshops aimed at educating primary school leavers about a range of hazards, such as safe bus and coach travel, first aid, fire prevention and railway safety.

The half day workshops, held at the Territorial Army centre, were delivered by representatives from Kent Fire and Rescue Service, Kent Police, St John Ambulance and Kent County Council amongst others.

Some of the most innovative and engaging workshops were delivered by children who volunteered from The Towers School in Kennington, Ashford, and they played a key role in helping to educate the primary school pupils.

Nearly 1,000 pupils from 29 schools in the borough took part in the fortnight, with points being awarded on the day for correct answers to questions asked about the topics covered.

This is the second, annual Safety In Action fortnight and due to the overwhelming success of this year’s event, the Community Safety Unit are looking into further action and follow-up.