Frequently Asked Questions
What is Roadster?
Roadster! is an automotive magazine for children. It aims to educate, inspire and entertain #kidswhoLOVEtheroad in all things automotive. Each issue is a variety of road safety, advice, STEM, English, Geography, History, fun, jokes and puzzles and far more!
The best way to find out about it is to take a look!
What does #kidswhoLOVEtheroad mean?
The magazine is aimed at junior car lovers, mechanics, engineers, designers, civil engineers, racers, truck fans.... think of anything to do with "the road" and you'll find it in Roadster!
What does adult facilitated, child led actually mean?
Involve.
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Children lead on producing content for Roadster! with the support of adults. This could be the adults working in companies facilitating visits, interviews or experiences, their parents helping them to produce content, or something else.
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Adults open the door for children to find their own way, with support, direction and barriers lifted.
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The project builds confidence, life skills and interests. There's a view that it is better to help ignite a child's passions now, rather then let them wander into adulthood without focused aspiration.
How does a nine year old act as Editor?
Sam is the key decision maker - the person who decides whether something happens or not. Often when Roadster is invited to participate in something Sam is the centre of attention (rightly so), but this CAN make him uncomfortable. You are essentially asking a young child to participate in a very adult envirnment. Sam does say no on occassion.
How often is Roadster published?
Termly. That's the aim at least. The idea is that kids work on it evenings, weekends, and half term holidays, and the actual magazine is published aligned to the main school holidays (Christmas, Easter, Summer).
How do you manage working on Roadster alongside school and work commitments?
Sam's schooling is really important and his Dad cares passionately about his work. For this reason Roadster is firmly a hobby project. We work on it together, when we have capacity on evenings, weekends and during school holidays.
Who writes Roadster REALLY?
Ah! A question we are asked frequently! It really is a joint effort, but it would be churlish to expect a child to do all of this. The key word is INVOLVE again. Sam is involved throughout the creative process. Consulted on everything, his ideas are thrown into the mix, and we sketch out a framework for a feature together.
Where an interview is involved we get together and plan out questions for Sam to ask. We do this together in order that the questions mean something to Sam when the actual interview takes place.
We also use tools such as questionnaire and templates to help Sam write reviews and such like. Structured questions and a guided approach helps Sam to produce a skeleton piece we can work with for the feature.
Sam does, for the, moment, tend to leave the adults to the majority of the writing, but we do ensure that, for most pieces, we have some kind of statement from Sam - reflections on an encounter or opinions about certain things.
What is the Roadster Advisory Board?
An idea. We aim to be a not-for-profit child-led endeavour. We need advice to help us get there, someone to hold us to account, and provide a consensus steer on the direction the project should take.
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We are on the hunt for advisors who would be willing to give up a regular amount of their time in order to help the project grow.
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Tell me about your approach to Safeguarding and keeping the children you work with safe?
Roadster! is a project that is scaling up! The project started with a father and a son, then some family friends got involved and with each issue more children and families are getting involved. As we scale up we are invited to do more activities, and conduct outreach and sales events.
We are also very keen that more and more children participate in Roadster! The project is for them.
Every group or organisation in the UK has a duty to safeguard children and young people in their care. This includes making sure that all children who attend events and activities are kept safe. Roadster! is led by a DBS checked adult who is a civil servant with a strict moral code, and an interest in providing for children - working as a primary school governor for a number of years.
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For more information see our Roadster! policies page.