Over the past two years, Little Stoke Primary School has been working towards increasing the amount of sustainable, active travel to school with the aim to help make the roads safer by reducing traffic – providing the school community with another way to be active and help to improve the air quality in the local area.
This has been achieved through a range of initiatives to promote walking, cycling and scooting to school such as ‘Bling your Bikes’ day and ‘Golden Lock’ prizes.
The school has also utilised South Gloucestershire Council to help run scooter and bike courses to teach children how to use them safely when out and about.
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Within the school curriculum, a range of workshops have been added for children to think about air quality, road safety and planning safe routes. These run from Early Years through to Year 6.
Throughout this period, the school has been working towards achieving a progression of awards available through the Modeshift STARS scheme.
Modeshift STARS is the national schools awards scheme that has been established to recognise schools that have demonstrated excellence in supporting cycling, walking and other forms of sustainable travel. The scheme encourages schools across the country to join in a major effort to increase levels of sustainable and active travel in order to improve the health and well-being of children and young people.
At the beginning of May, staff and pupils at Little Stoke Primary School were delighted to be awarded the highest STARS level possible, Platinum (outstanding), as recognition of the work they have completed and the improvements that have been made. This has been a culmination of the work of the whole school community in supporting these initiatives.
Chris Jelf, deputy headteacher, said:
“It has been great to see the whole school community work together to achieve this award. The children have taken an active part in the workshops and we have seen a huge increase in the amount of sustainable, active travel to school.”
“Through the awards, we have been able to access additional funding to improve our physical resources and it is lovely to see these used on a daily basis – even with the unpredictable British weather!”
Little Stoke Primary School becomes only the second school in South Gloucestershire to gain ‘outstsustaianding’ Modeshift STARS accreditation. According to South Gloucestershire Council, the school has achieved over 83 percent of pupils walking, cycling, and scooting to school with car use dropping from 36.17 percent to 14.43 percent.