Petal: Travel & Traffic | Health & Well-Being
Specialist: Rita Godfrey
Type of school: Primary Faith School
Campus: No
Curriculum: Yes
Community: Yes
Size of school: 239 pupils
- Context: Context: After continual, and beneficial participation in the WSCC Travel Incentives (Walk to School & International Walk to school Weeks - Going for Gold - Footsteps - Cycling Profiency & the Guinness Book of Records Largest Walking Bus), it was felt that we needed to find our own school incentive that would run on all school days, this would enable to the children to continue with their momentum in a healthier life choice. We wanted to ‘mirror’ the variety of healthy sustainable choices, all forms of walking, skating, scooting, cycling, park&walk, public transport and car sharing is celebrated.
- Background/starting point: After the May 2007, ‘Walk to School Week’ it was decided by the STP Group & the Governing Board to invite the School Council to come up with an incentive that would appeal to all the children attending the school. The School Council decided on a Walking Bus for the infant classes & Boot for the junior classes. Each class would have their own ‘Bus or Boot’ bank & the Golden Bus & Golden Boot Trophies would be given to the winning classes for each new term.
- Goals and objectives: Being a Faith school, many families have to drive to attend; many children are also taken to school prior their parent/carer going onto their work place. Our locality is town centre and situated on a one-way road system & due to this locality, limited parking & high volumes of traffic, it was felt that by including the incentive of parking away from school & walking the remainder, would enable all children to be involved, provide exercise, and would also reduce the safety aspect around our school at the critical parts of day.
- What did they do? Made the children’s design concepts. We collate all the class totals, taking percentages, highs/lows & areas to improve on at the end of each half term. Most periods run no more than 5 to 6 weeks before the count it made.
- Curriculum areas: Our ethos is to promote health, fitness, safety & general well-being in all areas. The Golden Bus & Boot totals are always calculated to provide the children with the knowledge of how many non-car journeys were made by the school & how the overall statistical impact is evident.
- Outcomes / Benefits / Achievements: The main outcome is that it is lead by the children; this incentive is completing its 2nd year, and each child/class still work towards securing their trophy or aim to improve their position, hence developing their personal and team building skills. They vary their forms of travel and more willing to try different forms, every ability and effort is awarded. Numbers do drop in the winter months, however, this is minimal. The main benefits are the healthy choice so many more children and families are making, there are many achievements i.e. all children improve their road awareness and taking the time to cross safely and cycle safely is by fair the best personal gain/achievement! Less parked cars around the school also allows safer crossing points with better road/pavement visibility which benefits all.
- Lessons learnt: The main lesson learnt in the 1st year was the daily count that was ‘banked’ into the Bus or Boot become time consuming at morning register; it also allowed some daily counts to go missing. We overcame this by entering a daily-tabled format into the register. This method has enabled us to keep a factual record which provides a compact day-by-day and year-to-year statistic account.
- What's next for this school? We are aiming for the 2009-2010 new school year to work again with the School Council to come up with 2 ‘Themed Weeks’. These new concepts can act to support areas within the curriculum i.e. role-play travel in different countries, environments, era’s and weather climates. These new incentives will work in parallel with our Golden Bus and Boot; they can be changed from year to year to encompass all ages, abilities and form of creative expression of the entire school.
- Resources used: The resources that we use for this incentive is now just paper and print-ink. Each 5 or 6 week table for register for 8 classes and then a further 4 pages for the collated totals and winning information for the presentation assembly.