Crafty youngsters have won prizes after designing eye-catching reflective school bags in a creative initiative from the Isle of Wight Council that promotes road safety within primary schools.
The Brighten Your Bag competition encourages pupils to design and decorate their school bags with high-visibility materials and bright colours, making them more visible to other road users during the darker winter months.
Primary schools across the Island that take part in the council’s Junior Travel Ambassador (JTA) scheme were encouraged to enter, and two children have now been awarded prizes for their dazzling designs.
This year, there were two categories for the competition:
• Key Stage 1: Pupils were provided with a bag template to create bright and colourful designs.
• Key Stage 2: Pupils were asked to decorate physical bags with reflective and fluorescent materials.
Participants were encouraged to use reflective materials, bright colours, and innovative designs to ensure their bags stood out. The goal was to make the bag as bright as possible, combining creativity with safety.
Southern Vectis sponsored the competition, offering a 24-hour rover bus ticket for the winning KS1 entry and a family ticket to their popular Christmas lights tour for the KS2 winner.
Bailey Street Furniture Group also sponsored by giving the Best Overall School a Scooterpod, which is a unique and compact scooter rack.
This year’s winners are:
- Key Stage 1: Louie Moorman, Gatten and Lake Primary School. Louie has won a scooter and a 24-hour rover bus ticket with Southern Vectis.
- Key Stage 2: Piper Callas-Bryan, Barton Primary School. Piper has won a scooter and a Southern Vectis Christmas Lights Tour family ticket.
- Gatten and Lake Primary School also won a Scooterpod scooter rack from Bailey Street Furniture Group for being the Best Overall School.
The competition aims to show primary schools and their communities that visibility is crucial for road safety, especially during the winter when daylight is limited.
Making sure you are visible to drivers can significantly reduce the risk of collisions and reflective or fluorescent materials help children be seen by motorists, cyclists and other pedestrians.
This is particularly important when children are walking, scooting, or cycling to school. Visibility is key for all road users, especially those who are classed as “Vulnerable Road Users” (VRUs).
This includes pedestrians, particularly children and the elderly, cyclists, disabled people, horse riders and motorcyclists.
Zoe Stroud, Southern Vectis senior marketing executive, said:
“It is essential that children continue to learn all about road safety, and that everyone is seen on the roadside during darker evenings in the winter months.
“Competitions like the Brighten Your Bag initiative remind all pupils and bus users to be safe and be seen. Some really creative entries were submitted, so well done to all students for their fantastic drawings, designs, and for continuing to think about road safety.”
Jan Robinson, National Active Travel Manager at Bailey Street Furniture Group, said:
“We here at Baileys are proud to support the 2025 Brighten Your Bag competition to ensure visibility for road safety awareness.
“The Scooterpod we are giving to the winning school, will encourage Active Travel whilst the children are out and about in their community.”
What are Junior Travel Ambassadors?
The Brighten Your Bag competition was open to all schools taking part in the council’s JTA scheme.
JTAs are pupils recruited from Key Stage 2 within primary schools to lead on an annual programme of road safety and active travel themed education, activities, and competitions.
To find out more or get your school signed up, please visit the JTA webpage on the Isle of Wight Council Website or contact [email protected]
Great to see school children addressing road safety,
shame the council don’t.
It’s about time the council installed speed cameras,
cameras above traffic lights and speed humps to slow
numpties down.
The children are more street wise.
Great project. As a driver I am amazed how many adults wear dark clothing and no reflective armbands or jackets.
it is just so dangerous.
Good reflective items are sold at many cycling and outdoor shops on the Island. Don’t be invisible.
These children are ahead of the game.
That is very true, dog walkers need to do the same
and wear Hi-Vis