Teacher resources – Year 3&4

TrackSAFE has prepared teacher resources including individual lesson plans and supporting resources aligned to the Australian Curriculum in the following areas:

  • English
  • Health & Physical Education
  • The Arts

English

This unit of work is a three lesson sequence designed using the Australian Curriculum: English Foundation to Year 10. It aims to develop students’ understanding and usage of subject specific vocabulary associated with TrackSAFE actions and to develop effectiveness with a range of spelling strategies.

Read the teacher notes first for instructions and suggested learning pathways. You can then choose to teach all 5 lessons or select a few which suit your students best.

Students discuss what they see in photos and brainstorm new vocabulary, creating a class vocabulary list. Then then identify and sort verbs, label the photos, or find words from base words, and add these to the class vocabulary list.

In this whole class activity, students experience modelled writing of a procedure, then write a simple procedure for arriving at a station and waiting on the platform for a train. They work with partners to share their procedures and give feedback, then collaborate to improve their procedures.

Students help the teacher edit a procedure by reordering the steps and correcting tenses. They then write instructions for staying safe on a pedestrian level crossing on sentence strips/sequencing software, or write, share and publish a procedure to help keep someone safe on a train station platform or level crossing.

Students explore slogans and discuss the meaning, audience, vocabulary and visual design in the messages conveyed by slogans. They help the teacher work through a method to create a slogan. They then work in pairs to write a TrackSAFE slogan and create a logo to support it.

Students create a procedure to keep other students safe while crossing at a pedestrian level crossing, and choose an appropriate slogan from the ones the class designed. They test their procedures with a partner and use feedback to edit them. They communicate their messages to the wider school community in fun and creative ways.

Health and Physical Education

This unit of work is a three-lesson sequence designed using the Australian Curriculum: Health and Physical Education Foundation to Year 10 and fits within the safety area of learning in the Personal, social and community health strand. These lessons support this through developing students’ knowledge, skills and understanding of safety actions needed to stay safe in the community and in road environments when near train tracks.

Read the teacher notes first for instructions and suggested learning pathways. You can then choose to teach all 5 lessons or select a few which suit your students best.

Students brainstorm concepts to prepare for a visit to the train station by creating a mind map. The class then visits a nearby train station platform, pedestrian level crossing or train tracks on an excursion. An alternative option for a simulated excursion using a video resource is also provided. Students practise safe walking, and observe and listen for things that help keep them safe

Students think about and discuss the STOP LOOK LISTEN THINK procedure, or play an outdoor game to practise the actions. They then identify the people who can help keep them safe and protective behaviours they should do near the train tracks, through drawing, writing, mapping; or role playing what adults could do to keep their little brothers safe.

Students create a class frieze of a pedestrian level crossing and train station including the safety features. They then identify actions that promote health, safety and wellbeing by creating a rail safety message. Finally, they create an interesting way of communicating their safety message to the school community, such as an assembly presentation, visual display, class blog post, picture book for pre-schoolers, or e-book.

The Arts

This unit of work is a three-lesson sequence designed using the Australian Curriculum: The Arts Foundation to Year 10. It aims to develop and enhance students’ imaginations and creativity through individual and collaborative means using voice, body, and instruments in visual and performance art.

Read the teacher notes first for instructions and suggested learning pathways. You can then choose to teach all 3 lessons or select a few which suit your students best

Students explore the way woven fibre artists represent ideas visually and discuss new vocabulary for weaving. They experience a weaving demonstration, discuss a safety message needed in their community, and how it might be represented through a woven artwork. They then create a woven artwork with a safety message about a TrackSAFE action, weave a safety image, or weave the words STOP LOOK LISTEN THINK and discover how the purpose of their artwork will influence where it is displayed. They share their artworks with the community such as at the local train station.

Students take turns playing ‘remote controller’ and try to keep the other students who are acting as passengers on the platform to stay behind the yellow line, calling out ‘pause’, ‘stop’, rewind’, ‘fast forward’ and ‘play’. They use think-pair-share to share a real or imagined example of a time they could have paused an unsafe situation and turn it into a positive outcome. They then work in groups create a mini-play that promotes safe behaviours when near train tracks. They perform their mini-plays, with a student playing ‘remote controller’ pausing for the class to discuss how an unsafe behaviour could be changed into a safe behaviour and getting students to act out the positive outcome.

Students listen to examples of rap music and identify its musical elements. They brainstorm and create rhyming couplets including ‘track’. They then create lyrics for a rap with a message about safety near train tracks, use percussion to enhance the meaning, choreograph and perform the dance and rap to an audience in their local community. They provide feedback to each other about the performance and clarity of the safety message