One of our highlights of the school run is seeing our Lollipop Lady, or ‘Lady Pop‘ as she is affectionately known to mine, named when Isaac couldn’t say her name as a toddler.
Our Lollipop Lady has seen all six of my children across the road and has been manning the school crossing since the school opened 1996. She is always bright and cheerful and greets each child by name, asking how they are and stopping to listen if they have something they want to tell her.
A couple of years ago the council wanted to save money and install a pelican crossing across the road to replace our Lollipop lady, but the road she manages can be a bit of a rat run for cars trying to take a short cut and after some campaigning by parents that see her everyday she has stayed and got some snazzy new road markings too.
In a time when children are positively encouraged to walk to school whenever possible, Lollipop men and women are essential to get our most treasured possessions to school safely, as they have done for many years. My husband’s grandmother was a Lollipop Lady for over 25 years and took great pride in ensuring the safety of children on their school run and was adored by children and parents alike.
There are thankfully more than 20,000 lollipop men and women who help keep our kids safe across Great Britain. However, the number of these amazing ‘Lollipoppers’ on our roads is beginning to dwindle, with Churchill Insurance’s research showing that nearly a third of parents are aware of a Lollipopper being removed from their local area with no suitable replacement.
- 95 per cent of parents and 88 per cent of children (aged 5 – 11) feel safer knowing there is a lollipopper present on their route to school
- 91 per cent of parents see a lollipopper as being safer than a zebra or pedestrian crossing
- However, 32 per cent of parents said a lollipopper had recently been removed from their local area – with no suitable replacement
Churchill want to help redress the balance and make this safeguard around our nation’s schools stronger than ever by giving funding to 50 schools to have their own Lollipopper with the Churchill Lollipopper Fund.
Do you know a school that needs a lollipopper?
Nominate your school for a chance to receive funding for a Churchill Lollipopper. It is super simple to do, simply click on this link, scroll to the bottom of the page and enter your school’s postcode into the box. Choose your school, fill in your name and email and submit the form.
What are you waiting for, nominate your school today!
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Oh we had a lollipop lady when we were kids and I remember how nice she was. Sadly she was hit by a car and taken out of action. That was a sad day for us back then..over 25 years ago now. This sounds like a good fund! Angela from Daysinbed x
We had a lollipop man for the first few years H was at school. He retired and they struggled to get someone to take it on sadly.
I am not sure or lollipop lady or gentleman is still around the areas I went to school but I hope they don’t get replaced
I love seeing lollipop ladies around and no we don’t have one in our local school. Maybe because of the location of our school, it’s a bit tricky. Sadly, I don’t think we really need one. Would love to have on though. x
I used to love our lollipop lady when I was at school. She used to double up as our cookery teacher!
Cat x
I think they do a great job, unfortunately we don’t have any in our area
I really wished they re-introduced visible lollypop ladies and gents in the area around us! Might encourage people to slow down on our roads!
wish we has a lollipop lady in my area, love the idea of it.
Aw, sounds like a fab campaign. We had uproar about two years ago when we removed a couple of lollipop crossings because the new safe routes to school meant they were no longer using them. Of course, the local press did not include that fact in their reporting. 😉
It’s quite a hard post to recruit for really, same as school caretakers. I don’t know why more schools don’t make use of their own on-site staff really. x
My Auntie used to be the local lollipop lady and she loved her job x
My school never had a lollypop lady, shame really as it’s always nice to see a friendly face on your way into school 🙂
This is a lovely campaign. There was only a lollipop man by one of the schools in our village, and he wasn’t there for long (we’re talking 25 years ago!). There aren’t any around now in our area as far as I know. Most places have crossings in place now.