Creative Youngsters Wax Lyrical About Building Site Dangers

Budding young poets from schools across Sheffield have helped to spell out the dangers of playing on building sites.

 

Sheffield Homes launched the Stay Safe in Sheffield campaign last year as its Decent Homes programme got underway.  Over the next four years, thousands of council homes citywide will be improved, at an estimated cost of £669m.

 

To try and keep local children safe whilst the work takes place, Sheffield Homes and its partnering contractors have taken the safety message into schools with fun presentations and competitions.

 

This year a poetry contest took place involving 66 schools that are close to where work is currently or soon to be carried out.

 

Children wrote an acrostic poem about anything to do with safety around building sites, using the letters of their name to provide the first letter of each sentence.

 

There were three age groups, with a winner for each from every school.  From these, three citywide winners were chosen.

 

On Thursday 20 July, all of the winners, families and teachers attended a presentation ceremony at Sheffield United Football Club.  Staff from Sheffield Homes and the contractors were there to give their support.  Two of the contractors safety mascots, Mears’ Mr Menda and Kier’s Kieran and digger the dog called in to see the children.

 

Every child was given a Stay Safe in Sheffield t-shirt, certificate and educational prize and the three overall citywide winners were given vouchers for themselves and for their school.  There were children’s entertainers and a face painter and the photographs were taken on the side of the football pitch.  It was a really fun day for all.

 

1^st Place – Ruby Parfett, age 8, Lowfield Primary School

Winning poem

 

R emember play in parks not building sites

U se your brain don’t play in pipes

B uilding sites are full of rubble

Y ou could get in lots of trouble

 

P its are waiting to be filled

A child that falls in could be killed

R ailing’s are to keep you out

F ast vehicles are moving all about

E ven grown up’s must take care

T hey should read the signs that say beware

T hen tell their kids not to go there

 

2^nd Place – Brittney Ashmore, age 7, Arbourthorne Primary School

3^rd Place - Lauren Fisher, age 8, Woodhouse West Primary School

Special Award – Alex Prescott, age 6, Intake Primary School

 

Jon Lovibond, Director of Investment at Sheffield Homes said

 “We have a duty to try and protect local children as the Decent Homes work is carried out.  Building sites and scaffolding can look like a lot of fun to children, so we have to do everything we can to get the safety message across.  These presentations and competitions really get the children involved and thinking about the dangers that exist.”