Unfortunately, we have had some recent near misses on both Johns Road and Main North Road involving our students and members of the school community and the public.

Each day, many of our students walk, bike, or scooter to school, and we want to make sure they’re doing so safely. With traffic often heavy around school, it’s important that everyone follows basic safety practices. Here are a few quick reminders to help keep our children safe:

• Use designated crosswalks: Please encourage your children to cross streets at marked crosswalks. These spots are designed to be safer for pedestrians. 

• Follow traffic signals: Make sure your child waits for the “walk” signal before crossing, and never crosses when the signal says “don’t walk” or the light is red.

• Look both ways before crossing: It’s a simple but important habit—always remind your child to look left, right, and left again before crossing, even when they’re using a crosswalk.

• Walk, don’t run: Running can be dangerous when crossing the street, especially in busy areas. Walking helps everyone stay safe.

• Stay alert to traffic: Drivers might not always see pedestrians, especially with bushes and trees blocking drivers' view, so it’s important for children to make eye contact with drivers before crossing and avoid distractions like phones or music.

If your child needs to cross Johns Road, please ask them to walk down and cross at the lights by Burger King/Z and then walk back down Johns Road rather than crossing four lanes of traffic on Johns Road. 

If your child needs to cross Main North Road, please ask them to walk down to the controlled crossing outside the Junior Campus. The lights and adults on duty make this the safest place to cross the four lanes of traffic.  

If you have any concerns about the crossings around school, please report these to the Christchurch City Council (CCC) or if it is a safety concern then we urge you to make a police report. We are working with the CCC to help make the journey to and from school safer.

Find attached the whānau and caregivers’ guide "HIKE IT, BIKE IT, SCOOT IT, SKATE IT SAFER JOURNEYS FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN" from NZTA to help support your conversations at home. By talking to your child about these tips and modeling safe behavior, we can work together to keep everyone safe

Thanks for your continued support in helping us make sure all our students get to and from school safely.

Ngā mihi

Sarah Cooper

Tumuaki Tuarua - Deputy Principal