PUPILS at a school in Woosehill are sustainable travel stars, thanks to a national award scheme.
The Hawthorns primary school is encouraging more families to leave their cars at home and get to school on foot or by bike, with the help of a scheme by active travel plan consultants Modeshift STARS.
Initiatives led by the school’s eco travel coordinator Sarah Mapleston have already gained green and bronze accreditation. Each level gained brings opportunities for the school to apply for funding of sustainable travel projects.
The Year 2 teacher is now leading community efforts to achieve silver.
“I have been working on the programme with our green team lead Louise Grigg, a Year 1 teacher,” Sarah explains.
“We held a bicycle maintenance workshop with Dr Bike and My Journey Wokingham for older pupils in Year 6 last month.
“This was as preparation for the Bikeability cycling proficiency classes they did last week.”
The school is the first primary in Wokingham borough to have the Dr Bike session funded. Feedback from children and parents has been positive.
“Dr Bike is a very kind man as he fixed my breaks,” one pupil said, and another said that Dr Bike is “cool” and fixed their flat tyre.
As part of Bikeability week, Sarah organised a biker’s breakfast for the 30 youngsters taking part. Food was supplied by Tesco Wokingham community champion, Louise Jedras.
Sarah adds that: “Having the right food is an important part of exercise and we wanted the children to learn that too.”
The breakfast certainly went down well. Year 6 pupil Rohan said the meal was “deluxe and a good chance to catch up with friends.”
There are also three air quality monitoring stations around the school site, as part of a borough council project, which are checked monthly. Lockdowns led to more walking and cycling to school and an improvement in readings from the monitors.
“One of the Modeshift targets is a 10% reduction in car usage,” Sarah explains.
“We’ve also held competitions and used funding available to improve signage around the school site, encouraging a 5mph speed limit and no idling engines in vehicles whilst waiting.”
Sarah now hopes to build links and share resources with other schools to develop strategies for reducing travel to schools by car.
For more information on Modeshift STARS, visit: modeshiftstars.org
