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Travel to school

Cornwall Council's School Travel Plan Team 

The School Travel Plan Team at Cornwall Council works with schools across Cornwall to support the development and implementation of travel plans. The team also coordinates cycle schemes such as Cyclewise and WISEBikes and provides ideas and resources for sustainable travel initiatives such as Walk to School Week, walking buses and National Bike Week.

Walk to School week in Mevagissey

School travel healthcheck

Visit School travel healthcheck to see how you can order a spatial analysis of all your pupils' journeys to school. Cornwall Council is one of the authorities that subscribe to this excellent research process.

School travel facts

School travel facts is another website with school-specific resources that can be used to help with updating your travel plan. Your collision map will be a useful aid to discussion of safe travel and you can get materials to inform your governors and create displays. Resources for maths, geography and PSHE are also available.

Walk to School website

The Walk to School website is a super resource. There are lesson ideas, a teachers' FAQ and lots of information.

Step Up! and Free Your Feet

Here are two websites seeking to encourage secondary pupils to walk to school. Run by Living Streets with Big Lottery funding, Free Your Feet is a whole-school walking challenge for secondary schools. Have a look at Step Up! as well.

Modeshift and NHS South West

Modeshift and NHS South West have produced Promoting active travel to school: progress and potential, a short paper which answers the main questions people often ask about promoting active travel to school:

  • How far can young people reasonably be expected to walk or cycle to school?
  • Is any progress being made to get more young people active by promoting walking or cycling to school?
  • What is the potential for encouraging more young people to walk or cycle to school?
  • What can be done to get better value for money?

Data show that on average local authorities in the South West have 600 more young people walking to school in 2010, compared with just two years ago.

Sustainable travel 

Sustrans 

The sustainable transport charity Sustrans has a vision of a world in which people choose to travel in ways that benefit their health and the environment. Sustrans has produced a series of informative and practical information sheets, in particular School travel and the obesity challenge shows how the school journey can play a part in preventing weight gain in young people and is an ideal starting point for schools and individuals. Sustrans also produces two newsletters: Routes 2 Action, for members of the schools community and health professionals; and Tracks, written by young people, for young people. You can subscribe to these newsletters by visiting the Sustrans website.

The APTTO Project

The cross-governmental strategy for England, Healthy Weight, Healthy Lives recognises the vital importance of unstructured play and active travel for children's physical and emotional wellbeing. Yet despite various policy statements, the natural synergies between promoting and enabling outdoor play and active travel are not generally being met at the local level.

Sustrans has received funding from the South West Regional Public Health Group towards the first year of a regional programme of work, Active Play and Travel: Tackling Obesity in the South West. In the pilot phase of the project Sustrans will work with Bournemouth and Poole Borough Councils to find out how an approach that combines infrastructural investment with behavioural change work can get more people playing outdoors and being active. Bournemouth and Poole Primary Care Trust has also funded a Bike It! officer to work with primary schools in the area. Read more about all this work on the Sustrans website.

Evaluation of Bike It

The Centre for Local Economic Strategies has carried out a two-year evaluation of Bike It, finding that children who participate in Bike It are more active, social and healthier.

Scooters

Here is a link to RoSPA's safety information about scooters. The downloadable document, published in 2003, is still current.

Junior Road Safety Officer

This JRSO website has lots of good ideas, competitions, a section on road safety information and a fun zone. See also Cornwall Council's JRSO page.