Tales from the Walking Bus #1: Walking Bus to the Rescue.
Last week on a cold and icy morning we were walking along to school as normal. Then we saw a lady who had slipped over and hurt herself badly. A couple of the mums went to help her and call an ambulance. Their own children joined us on the Walking Bus so they could get to school while their mums helped the lady (they were already registered to join).

Of course someone would have helped the lady anyway but the Walking Bus made it much easier for the assistants as they didn't have to worry about getting their kids to school. It probably gave the lady more dignity not having kids standing around watching her too.

Hubby was watching Match of the Day on TV last weekend. Three kids in the crowd were wearing yellow high visibility waistcoats....and the camera focused on them for ages.

Moral of this story is...if you take your kids to a football match that's being televised and you want a better chance of seeing them on TV in the crowd, make sure they're wearing a fluorescent, reflective waistcoat!!!

Today a BBC television crew rolled up to film us for a news item about BrightKidz for Look East, our regional BBC news programme. Massive excitement for the children of course!! We had the perfect setting because we were outside the school and it was getting near to twilight so the children's fluorescent colours showed up really well, as they are meant to when daylight is fading.

Nowadays lots of the local children wear high-vis when they walk to and from school. Admitedly even more of them did today than usual (the power of TV!). I hope more of them will get the 'high-vis habit' and wear it regularly especially at this time of year when it gets dark so early.

I think our new fluorescent pink reflective sashes will be popular with the older girls. The boys like winding the fluorescent yellow reflective sashes around their rucksacks.

Another use for high-vis I've thought of today..... if you're in a crowd being filmed for TV and you want to be spotted just wear some high-vis. Best if it's in a colour other than fluorescent yellow otherwise you will blend in with the police and security guards. Not a good idea if you are an extra in something like Lord of the Rings as I don't think they had high-vis waistcoats in Tolkein's day.

Bbbbbrrrrrrr.....it's freezing today. Despite the cold weather our Walking Bus turnout was really good as so many people have just got into the habit. The kids (not just on the Walking Bus) were excited as today they were given their WOW badges for Walking On Wednesdays in November (a scheme by Living Streets).

Yesterday it was so dark as the children came out of school. At least more and more of them are wearing their high vis waistcoats as they come out, rather than just in the morning. After school is when they really need to be bright nowadays. It helps having the teachers reminding them to put them on!

Welcome to the first Blog from BrightKidz and Safe Kids Walking. This is a busy time of year for us and we've got lots of news on walk to school schemes and high vis for kids, so I'd better getting on with telling you about it....

High Vis Workshop
On Wednesday I visited a local primary school to try out our new School High Vis Resource pack. I ran a high vis workshop for 3 classes of Year One pupils. We're trying to get across the message that fluorescent colours help you to be seen in daytime and towards dusk and reflective things help you to be seen after dark. They had good fun trying on the different colour fluorescent, reflective vests...of course the girls really went for the fluorescent pink waistcoat! They learnt the difference between fluorescent and reflective. They made collages of people wearing high vis waistcoats and carrying high vis umbrellas, bookbags etc for a display along the school corridor. We're hoping other schools will use the resource packs in the same way.

High Vis Message to Parents
We wanted to get the message home to parents too so gave each child a fluorescent bookmark with a message about 'fluorescent for day, reflective for night' and asked them to show it to their parents. Many parents mistakenly think that a little bit of reflective tape on a bag or coat will make their kids visible to traffic in the daytime. They don't realise the importance of bright or fluorescent colours in daytime and towards dusk; which is when primary school children are going to and from school.

CBBC Newsround Website High Vis Competition
Other major news for us this week... Our products now appear on the CBBC Newsround website! Their website team are running a road safety competition with some of our BrightKidz and BrightSportz 'cool, funky' high vis accessories as prizes. These include our fluorescent yellow umbrellas which have a reflective band. Our BrightSportz duffle bags are also on offer as prizes as well as smaller accessories such as slappits (slapbands), reflective badges, high vis stickers, Talmu reflectors (like the ones Nationwide give away to Reception class children), our multicolour Be Bright wristband as well as a new product we are about to launch (still a secret but you'll hear about it here first). Hope they get lots of entries.

CBBC Newsround, Brake and Jacqueline Wilson
A couple of weeks ago it was Road Safety week organised by the charity Brake. In Westminster, children from a local primary school took part in the launch which was also attended by Jacqueline Wilson (the seriously famous and seriously respected children's author who does loads to support road safety initiatives). My kids aren't old enough to be into her books yet but even I have heard of her! Apparently Jackie magazine (teen girls mag from 1970s) was named after her because at that time she worked in the magazine office...way before she became a famous author.

Here are some photos of the launch, (thanks to Brake for letting us use these). CBBC Newsround had a feature on this on television that week. You may recognise the multicolour high vis jackets (BrightKidz of course)... the first appearance of a BrightKidz waistcoat on national TV!