This school year, traffic police chose a new and more demanding route for the test. The traffic police officer introduced the test route over the course of several days, taking the class on their bikes from point to point and discussing what to look out for at each of them.
Some of the skills required, such as turning left or avoiding obstacles, were practised separately on the school playground. A road safety booklet was also used to discuss all of the key road safety rules and help the children learn the theory.
The class then walked the route on foot again and discussed all the tricky sections. While they were doing this, they came up with the idea of capturing the route in pictures so that they could still practise going through it in their minds if it was raining, for example. So one afternoon a pupil was photographed taking the right course of action at each of the difficult points on the route.
This meant that in the classroom the pupils were able to talk through the route picture by picture in small groups or pairs and discuss the right way to behave and possible dangers. Individual groups then presented the pictures and pointed out what was being done right in each of the places shown.
All of the children in 4th grade were therefore able to practise regularly in the run-up to the test, without the teachers actually having to take them out of school to cycle the route. Of course, photo documentation is no substitute for actual cycling. But it provided an ideal way to help the pupils at the August-Hermann-Francke Primary School learn.