Teachers leading the bid to beat stats

Veteran Tasmanian high school teacher Julie Howard has left a legacy at Campbell Town District High School aimed at saving lives lives.

Worried about her teenage students driving on country roads around Campbell Town and at home on the farm – and knowing that they didn’t have access to driver safety programs that city counterparts took for granted – she established a training workshop called Beat the Stats, Drive to Survive.

She knew the presumption that most country kids were fine driving because they’d grown up “mucking around” with all sorts of vehicles, was wrong, so the first workshop was held in 2018 and it has been going ever since.

Having long helped out with the training, volunteer Josie Chester has now taken the wheel.

“What we are trying to do is deliver a well-rounded driver education program,” Mrs Chester said.

“We try to improve it every year.

“It’s aimed at rural kids, taking away the barriers rural kids have accessing this kind of training.

“It’s been really successful – the students enjoy it and learn a lot and the parents also notice a difference in safety awareness – and I’ve had contact from other schools asking about it.”

Beat the Stats will continue this year at Campbell Town with Mrs Chester committed to stay to support advanced skills teacher Amanda Lydon and staff taking on the program.

Another quad bike and side by side training day will be held on August 2 at the Campbell Town Showgrounds for grade 10 and 11 students.  The course is fully funded by MAIB and delivered by TasTAFE, which supplies the vehicles.

Following a theory lesson in the morning, students pair up in the three vehicles, practise their safety checks and drive under supervision before post checks are completed.

The school also offers driving lessons through RACT.

“It’s about offering these opportunities without the impost of having to drive to a city, which is not possible for a lot of people,” Mrs Chester said.

As a primary producer in the local community and a Beacon volunteer, Mrs Chester could see that upskilling local students could be worthwhile, suggesting that rural teenagers also needed quad bike training.

“Conversations with local farmers who were prepared to take on Campbell Town students for work experience had said they would only do so on the proviso that the students had some skills to make the experience worthwhile,” she said.

More than 127 student have participated in 473 driving lessons and 116 quad bike and/or side by side lessons.