By Brendan Rees
A pair of creative siblings at a Berwick primary school have taken out the top prizes in Metro Trains’ annual rail safety poster competition.
Metro invited children from Foundation through to Year 6 from schools across Melbourne to participate in the ‘Safe Travel on Metro Trains’ competition.
With a unique remote learning environment due to coronavirus, students were challenged to combine rail safety messages and advice around health, hygiene and social distancing.
Siblings Vinuthi, 8, and Chanithu, 10, of Brentwood Park Primary School claimed top prizes for their entries.
Grade three student Vinuthi won first prize for the Years 3 to 4 category for her poster and took home a Nintendo Switch game console and game.
Her poster promoted a range of safe behaviours including walking bikes through level crossings, standing behind the yellow line, and keeping a safe social distance from others.
Year 5 student Chanithu took home a Playstation 4 Pro console and gaming headset for the Years 5 to 6 category for his winning poster that promoted social distancing and the work of emergency services workers, and calling on people to remove headphones at level crossings.
Proud dad Chamal Wijesekara said his children, who loved to draw and paint, spent hours on their impressive pieces.
“Normally it’s very hard to keep them in one place for this kind of activity,” he said.
“We were very, very excited!”
Due to coronavirus restrictions, Metro conducted remote video conferencing sessions with the winning students and their principals.
Metro community education unit team leader Luke Martin said the competition was a terrific way to engage young people on the importance of being safe around trains.
“The remote learning requirements presented some challenges and I’m so proud of all our winners and participants – they’ve really risen to the challenge,” he said.
The competition comes ahead of Rail Safety Week (10 – 16 August).
