Winford Primary School has been kindly sponsored by another local business for the year, to keep their school crossing patrol running.

Every year Winford Parish Council and the school seek sponsorship to help pay for the School Crossing Patrol as North Somerset do not fund school crossing patrols.

The roads outside the school are very busy, and it can be dangerous at peak times for children to cross the road without the help of Shirley Green, the school’s lollipop lady. As well as usual school itime congestion, the junction in fron the the Primary School also gets traffic coming to and from Bristol airport.

“I wanted to see the safety of the children getting accross the road because these roads get very busy”, said Shirley. “i just love it, and I work here anyway, so it all fitted in nicely”.

“There have been problems with speecing, but nine times out of ten, people know I’m there now so they do slow down.”

Shirley has been in the role for four years, and helps children cross the road come rain or shine.

Headteacher Nik Gardiner added: “The crossing patrol is an essential service for pupils to be able to get to school safely in the morning and to get home in the afternoon. It is a very busy stretch of road and near to a junction, so we are very grateful to both Shirley and our sponsors for recognising this very important job.”

This years’s sponsor is MJ Patch, a local engineering company. They started sponsoring the crossing patrol in January 2023 and will continue this sponsorship for the whole year.

Winford Parish Council said: “It’s important for us to help out with finding the funding as we wouldn’t have a crossing patrol without it. North Somerset don’t fund School Crossing Patrols.

Winford Parish Council worked with North Somerset to ensure that they approved our need for a crossing patrol on the busy roads outside the school. Once they had agreed that there was a need it was only natural that the PC would then support with finding the annual funding costs. Our first sponsors were a local family company who had children at the school and came forward to offer their support. MJ Patch are now kindly taking on the sponsorship to keep the children safe.