It is a community event that promotes road safety, health, public transport and the environment.

This initiative is seen as a valuable way to engage with parents, carers, teachers and students to highlight the importance of road safety, with more than one million students travelling to schools across NSW each day.

The NSW Government is also improving pedestrian safety around school zones by investing $10 million for additional school zone flashing lights and pedestrian safety infrastructure like raised zebra crossings and dragon’s teeth markings.

Primary school aged children, parents and carers can access road safety information for young children at the safety town website www.safetytown.com.au 

Comprehensive road safety advice for parents, children and school communities can also be found on the Centre for Road Safety website at http://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/

Fire and Rescue Open Day this Saturday

Fire and Rescue NSW (FRNSW) is throwing open fire station doors across the state this Saturday, May 20 between 10am and 2pm, and it’s a great opportunity for people of all ages to come along and meet our local fire fighters.

Children will be able to climb aboard a fire engine, see fire-fighting equipment up close and take home an educational Brigade Kids activity booklet.

For the grown-ups, it’s a good opportunity to speak with the professionals to find out more about fire prevention, get advice on installing or replacing smoke alarms and preparing a home fire escape plan.

This open day, FRNSW is focusing on fire prevention in the kitchen, urging people to ‘Keep Looking When Cooking’ and avoid a potentially fatal cooking

Calling all community groups, councils and charities to make an application for almost $8 million in State Government funding to help build or improve community facilities used by social housing tenants.

Applications for Round 3 of the SHCIF have been extended by two weeks, giving community groups and non-government organisations more time to apply for the one-off grants of between $2000 and $50,000.

The SHCIF funds investment in communal facilities that can be enjoyed by both social housing tenants and the broader community alike.

Since 2015 the SHCIF has invested in nearly 300 projects across NSW to help build or improve facilities and communal areas used by people living in social housing.

Applications for Round 3 of the SHCIF will now close at 5pm on May 24.

Further information is also available by contacting the Social Housing Community Improvement Fund team on 1800 379 184 or emailing SHCIF@facs.nsw.gov.au.

The Premier’s Reading Challenge (PRC) has been launched for 2017.

The Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature.

It is not a competition but a challenge to each student to read, to read more and to read more widely.

The PRC takes place between March and August each year, and is celebrating its fifteenth year in 2017.

The PRC is open to all NSW students in Kindergarten to Year 9 in government, Catholic, independent and home schools.

The PRC booklists include fiction, non-fiction, picture books, poetry and drama.

The lists include a wide variety of Australian authors. Visit online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/home.html