School travel initiatives
School travel initiatives
If your school has a valid travel plan in place, you can take advantage of a wide range of exciting free initiatives and training courses that could benefit your school community.
Walking
- WOW year-round Walk to School Challenge
WOW is Living Streets’ year-round Walk to School Challenge. It’s an incentive scheme designed to encourage and reward pupils who travel actively to school.
Pupils are challenged to walk, cycle, scoot, skate or Park and Stride at least once per week for a month, to be rewarded with a specially designed badge for that month. Each month has its own badge, so pupils are encouraged to take part all year round to collect them all. The scheme can also be adapted to reward punctuality, presentation, conduct and attainment.
Encouraging pupils to travel actively to school can help reduce congestion from cars and improve local air quality, whilst increasing pupil health and happiness. Pupils enjoy taking part, and WOW can be a great way to change travel behaviours and instill a life-long beneficial habit.
With the WOW travel tracker, teachers can record how their pupils travel to school every day and easily keep track of which pupils have earned a badge each month. Just a few minutes of a teacher’s day is all it takes to make a big difference; and the travel tracker also reduces the amount of paper-based resources required.
WOW badges are produced in Cornwall and are made using excess yogurt-pot material previously destined for landfill. The packaging used is also made from 70% recycled material and is 100% biodegradable.
Each year, a competition is held for pupils to submit their design ideas for the next round of badges. These designs are based around a specific theme, and the badges for WOW 2019-20 are based on ‘inventions that changed the world’. Taking part in WOW and the badge design competition also counts towards TfL STARS accreditation and helps schools achieve Healthy School status.
If your school has a valid travel plan and would like to participate in the WOW year-round Walk to School Challenge, please contact us at: [email protected].
- Walk to School Week in May
Schools across the borough take part in Walk to School celebrations twice a year. Walk to School Week takes place each year during May, and October is International Walk to School Month. Both celebrations are intended to promote walking by focusing on a walking-related theme.
During Walk to School Week, the Royal Borough hosts its own themed walking trail event, which is a fun walking competition schools can get involved in, filled with exciting exploration and various prizes for both winners of the map challenge, and all participants.
The Walking Trail
The Royal Borough’s Walking Trail was created to celebrate Walk to School Week in May, and encourage families to walk and explore their local area in search of themed cut-outs hidden in different locations across the borough. The event takes place over two weeks, and involves a competition to see which pupils can find the most cut-outs using the challenge map, which we provide to all participating schools.
How can I get my school involved?
On approach to Walk to School Week, we will send out invitations to all STARS schools so that they can confirm their participation and request challenge maps for pupils. Invitations are sent out during March and April, and you can also contact us at [email protected] to confirm your school’s participation. Your school can also decide to be a host/partner of the walking trail, which involves using your school site as a location for the hidden cut-outs. Please email us if your school is interested in being a host. Hosting schools are automatically signed up to participate in the challenge.
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How does the competition work?
Pupils are provided with a challenge map that shows the areas where all the cut-outs are located. Each cut-out is associated with a question on the challenge map quiz, and the answers to the questions can be found on the hidden cut-outs. The task is to find as many cut-outs as you can, and write the answers you find, which can include interesting facts about the location or about the cut-out itself.
How do I submit my challenge map and quiz answers?
Each participating school and library is provided with a ballot box, which is used as a collection point for your pupil challenge maps and collected at the end of the Walking Trail event. Be sure to write down your details on the map, as everyone who takes part and returns their completed maps to us receive a badge and get entered into a draw for three runner-up prizes. Pupils who visit all dinosaur locations are entered into the draw to receive the grand prize!
To send your answers back to us you can:
- drop your completed maps into the boxes provided at schools and participating libraries (remembering to fill out your contact details so we know where to send the badges)
- email us at [email protected] with your answers
- post completed maps to the Sustainable Travel Team, The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, 37 Pembroke Road, London W8 6PW
We will notify all schools of the deadline for entries prior to the event.
- Pedestrian training
Cycle Experience deliver the pedestrian training in the Royal Borough. The training is best suited to Years 1 and 2, but can also be delivered to Year 3. Find out more on the Training opportunities and courses page.
Cycling and scooting
- Cycle training for pupils and staff, bicycle maintenance classes and how to obtain cycle route maps.
- Bike maintenance courses from Bikeminded - visit the Bikeminded website.
- Free cycle route maps from TfL (cycle route map number seven covers the Royal Borough) - visit the TfL website.
- Bike markets in Kensington and Chelsea
Delivered by Peddle My Wheels, bike markets provide a brilliant opportunity to purchase affordable and serviced second-hand child or adult bikes, and/or clear out your own unwanted bicycles to make some money and create affordable bike stock for the community.
- Public bike markets
Four public bike markets will be held in the Royal Borough throughout 2019.
- School bike markets
School bike markets can either be for a full day, or an express bike market that takes place for an hour in the morning before the school day begins. All bikes that are not sold within the hour of an express morning market are put on general sale for a short time after.
- Order a bike for a market
Those who are interested in purchasing a bike at any of the markets can complete the online form to guarantee a bike of a particular size and type is available on the day. There is no obligation to purchase the requested bike.
If you would like to learn more about bike markets or stay updated on where the markets are popping up in the Royal Borough, please email us at: [email protected], visit the Bikeminded website or check our social media posts @BikemindedRBKC.
Campaigns and resources
- Sustainable schools
For information and advice on the support available to schools within the borough, please visit our School's climate change page.
- Eco-Schools
Eco-Schools is an international award programme that provides a framework to help embed sustainability principles into the heart of school life. Transport is one of nine key topics that contributes towards the award. For more information please see the Eco-Schools website.
- Project Dirt
Project Dirt is an active online community, connecting environmental projects being undertaken by real people. It is also London's largest green network. Register your school on the Project Dirt website to start receiving their weekly update on local activities.
Sustainable travel education
There is a wide range of educational resources, activities and training opportunities available for schools, designed to incorporate road safety education into the curriculum and encourage pupil involvement in the school travel plan. This section covers a number of ways schools can achieve this and best support teachers in incorporating road safety into a well-balanced school programme.
- Junior Travel Ambassadors (JTA) Scheme
The Junior Travel Ambassadors (JTA) scheme encourages pupils to take on an active role in supporting the school travel plan and organising sustainable travel activities for their school. The scheme provides a fantastic opportunity for pupils to promote important messages about road safety, active travel and air quality to the school community, whilst developing their own presentation and communication skills.
JTA can support the school travel plan in a number of ways. This can include hosting their own class activities and assemblies, running stalls (such as Be Bright Be Seen stalls during Road Safety Week in November), supporting walking-related school activities and events, and acting as monitors for the Walk Once a Week (WOW) challenge.
School Travel Champions and JTA are invited to attend a training event at the start of the school year. At these events, pupils are introduced to their role as JTA, and provided with a variety of resources to support them, including a JTA bag, guide, badge and other useful leaflets and promotional material they may be interested in for their school. This event also provides a brilliant opportunity for staff and pupils to meet JTA teams from other schools. We also aim to visit JTA teams throughout the year to offer support with their projects and activities.
If your school would like support in setting up JTA, please contact us at: [email protected].
- Met police support
We work closely with the local Police Community Support Officers (PCSO) to ensure that schools are able to get the help they need where issues of enforcement or antisocial behaviour are affecting families’ journeys to school. The PCSOs work with the community to reduce antisocial behaviour and offer help with policing issues across the borough.
If you require the support of your local PCSOs, please contact your local Safer Neighbourhood Team.
- Road safety resources
If you are looking for some inspiration for teaching road safety through Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE) then take a look at a selection of the resources available to your school:
A – Z of Traffic Tales
This extensive resource has been developed to help teach road safety through literacy, as well as promote key personal, social, health, emotional and citizenship issues. For each letter of the alphabet there is an engaging short story with colourful lively pictures, all presented in six ‘Big Books’. The books are supported by a comprehensive teacher’s guide, crammed with literacy ideas, discussion points, key words, a range of suggested activities for citizenship, and of course detailed information on relevant road safety messages. Every primary school has been sent a copy of these resources direct from TfL. However, if these are not readily available, please contact us at: [email protected] and we will try to ensure that a set is delivered to your school. More information is available on the TfL A-Z Traffic Tales web page.
TfL Safety and Citizenship Programme
Transport for London’s Safety and Citizenship team provides a free of charge transport education service to all schools within Greater London. The aim of this initiative is to promote safety and good citizenship on and around London's transport system. Find out more about the services of the Safety and Citizenship Team on the TfL website.
- Theatre in Education
We offer a range of Theatre in Education visits aimed at pupils in years 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Specially commissioned for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea by the Stopwatch Theatre Company, ‘Way to Go!’ is aimed at years 3 and 4, and explores issues of pedestrian safety. ‘Chicken!’ is aimed at years 5 and 6, and explores issues relating to road safety, peer pressure and bullying. Both plays are extremely well received by schools in the borough.
We will invite all schools with a valid travel plan in place to book a performance, and normally fill the tours on a first come first served basis.
For further information booking road safety theatre in education for your primary school, contact us at: [email protected].
Parking enforcement
Congestion and dangerous parking can be a real concern for many schools implementing their travel plan. These issues effect the whole school community, including pupils, parents, school staff and local residents and businesses.
Parked vehicles can obstruct the road for pedestrians, making crossing a dangerous process, especially for children. We have worked with schools across the borough to develop campaigns to tackle these issues, and continuously support schools with their sustainable travel initiatives, in an effort to improve road safety and reduce congestion outside schools.
We provide our schools with a number of resources that aim to raise awareness amongst the school community about the issues of dangerous parking and idling, and also support schools with their activities focused on encouraging active travel to and from school.
The Council deploys civil enforcement officers (CEOs) to monitor the Royal Borough for parking violations and idling vehicles. Our officers are also equipped with no-idling leaflets that are handed out to idling drivers, as part of our approach to discourage idling. In addition, the location and registration number of idling vehicles are noted, to enable us to produce a map of hotspots and persistent offenders, to better target our enforcement officers.
- School parking case study
St Cuthberts with St Matthias CE Primary School is located on the extremely busy thoroughfare of Warwick Road, just minutes from Earl’s Court Underground station.
Due to the school's busy location it only took a few drivers to park inconsiderately before a hazardous environment for pedestrians was created. The school was keen to tackle this problem and took part in one of the first pilots of our new style campaign.
With joint support from parking enforcement officers, local police and the Royal Borough's Road Safety and Travel Plan Team, pupils and staff were able to confront drivers and create a lasting reduction in occurrences of double parking and other inconsiderate practices at their school gate.