Posters promoting safety on building sites have been designed by children from Anagh Coar School in a project organised by the Dandara Group.

The award-winning developer asked the pupils to come up with colourful and informative safety posters to display at a construction site near the school. They produced a collection of eye-catching designs, and three have been selected to feature at the site.

Keira Leece, from Year 3/4, produced the winning poster, with Year 6’s Madison Crellin’s design in second place and Amy-Leigh Baker-McCabe, from Year 4, third. Large versions of the winning posters have been installed at the Isle of Man Business Park site where the new Zurich headquarters is under construction.

The poster competition was part of Dandara’s work in the community during the development project. The company is a member of the Considerate Constructors Scheme which requires developers to engage with the local community to make them aware of potential disruption and keep them updated on progress.

As part of the Scheme and Dandara’s ongoing work with Isle of Man schools, Contracts Manager Len Arnold and Safety Advisor Grant Howard visited Anagh Coar School to highlight the dangers of playing on building sites and the safety procedures involved in construction.

To further engage the youngsters and reinforce the safety message, Len and Grant launched the poster design competition. Displaying the winning posters at the Zurich site also helps highlight the safety messages to anyone passing or visiting the development.

Len said: ‘We regularly visit schools to talk about the construction profession, demonstrate what’s involved in developments and warn of the dangers you can encounter on a building site. Safety is our priority and we want to make everyone aware of why they should never access a site unsupervised.

‘This is especially important when we begin work on a new development, and we make sure we communicate with the local community so they know what is happening and, vitally, to highlight the safety message.

‘We felt that it would help reinforce the safety message if we invited the children at Anagh Coar School to create posters for the Zurich site, and we were absolutely delighted with the designs. They had clearly heard and understood the warnings and it was a really tough job choosing just three to display. By displaying the posters at the site we are not only showing off the wonderful work done by the children, but also making sure the important safety message is clear for anyone passing by or visiting.’

He added: ‘I’d like to thank headteacher Rob Coole and everyone at the school for getting involved.’

Mr Coole said: ‘When Dandara contacted us with this idea I was really pleased as we regularly give messages out to pupils with regards to their safety outside of school hours. Having someone involved in the building trade to back up these messages was invaluable.

‘Asking the pupils to engage with a poster design competition also demonstrated just how much the children remembered about the information given and that the message had reached them loud and clear. I really look forward to seeing the final designs on display and having our pupil’s safety messages spread to the wider community. Thank you to all involved from Dandara for helping to educate our pupils about this important matter.’

Image: (from left) Amy-Leigh Baker-McCabe with her third-placed design, Contracts Manager Len Arnold, Keira Leece with her winning design, Anagh Coar headteacher Rob Coole and Madison Crellin with her second-place design

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