Keeping children safe - First News Look Up! Campaign supported by JPI Media

First News Look Up! campaignFirst News Look Up! campaign
First News Look Up! campaign
Look Up! First News campaign supported by Jpi MediaLook Up! First News campaign supported by Jpi Media
Look Up! First News campaign supported by Jpi Media

A new First News Look Up! campaign, supported by JPIMedia, aims to warn children about the dangers of not putting mobile phones away while crossing roads.

Competition

Design the Look Up! Campaign poster

Supported by:

Look Up! campaign supported by StabiloLook Up! campaign supported by Stabilo
Look Up! campaign supported by Stabilo
(photo: FARBAI - stock.adobe.com)(photo: FARBAI - stock.adobe.com)
(photo: FARBAI - stock.adobe.com)

First News is creating a Look Up! assembly for every school in the country to hold after Easter. So, we are creating a free assembly pack for all schools nationwide.

Part of that pack will be a Look Up! campaign poster for schools to put up around their buildings as a constant reminder to pupils to look up from their phones while crossing the road.

And who better to design the poster than young readers like you?

You could win an exciting STABILO stationery bundle for yourself and your classmates.

From a splash of colour using Power, Cappi and aquacolor, to helpful revision tools such as BOSS, point 88 and SENSOR, the possibilities are endless!

We’re looking for a primary school poster and a secondary school poster. The primary school winner will win a STABILO goody bag, and their school will receive a school class pack worth up to £600. The secondary school winner will win a STABILO goody bag, plus products worth up to £600 from the STABILO ARTY range for their school.

To enter, create your poster (A4-sized) and send it to us by March 11, along with your name, age and school details.

It can be uploaded at first.news/LookUp, emailed to[email protected] (putting Look Up! in the subject box), or posted to Look Up! competition, First News, 58 Southwark Bridge Road, London, SE1 0AS.

Highly commended posters will be part of a downloadable online gallery.

First News has launched a campaign to warn schoolchildren about the dangers of crossing roads while using phones. The campaign is called Look Up!

Although many people are distracted by mobile phones, children are the most affected. By the age of 12, nearly all children have a phone and there is a clear link between the use of mobile devices and the time of serious accidents with children, particularly at the end of the school day.

The numbers are shocking

The Covid-19 lockdown and school closures mean the road safety figures for 2020 were affected that year.

But, in 2019, 6,200 pedestrians were killed or had life-changing injuries on UK roads. More than one in five of those people (1,415) were aged 17 or under – that’s around a whole class of school children EVERY week.

Accident data shows those aged 11 to 14 are the most likely to be killed or badly hurt – around 50 EVERY month.

The evidence

Different studies over a number of years have shown that phones are a growing cause of distraction for pedestrians, affecting whether they cross a road safely. There’s even a name for people distracted by phones: SMOMBIES (from smartphones plus zombies).

A study by the University of Lincoln in 2019 looked at mobile phone use by school children while crossing the road.

They observed pupils outside a secondary school in the north of England over a four-week period.

They were watching to see if the pupils looked (or failed to look) left and right before crossing the road, whether they crossed when the pedestrian light was on red or green and whether they crossed on the crossing.

The researchers found that nearly a third (31.37 per cent) of road crossings were made by pupils with a phone or other device and that they looked less frequently when they had them.

They concluded that the safety of school-age pedestrians is affected by mobile phones and music players.

Related topics: