Stair safety!

We have a young family ages 1-5 and are concerned about the stair case and potential accidents. We have designed a landing mid way through for about a metre which is aimed at limiting a fall. Of course there'll be a hand rail and I think it's going to be wooden. Are there any other ideas on how to secure a stair case? We can of course use baby gates but there will be times that older kids will need to go up/down by themselves without having someone there every time.

Carpet with underlay is softer than wooden treads if someone falls.

but as a trade off I've found carpeted stairs can be more slippery