TfL STARS (Transport for London – Sustainable Travel: Active, Responsible, Safe) accreditation scheme promotes active, healthy and sustainable travel in London by inspiring young people to travel to school by walking, scootering and cycling. This in turn helps to reduce vehicle congestion at the school gates leading to better air quality, an improvement in road safety and ultimately improving our pupils’ health and wellbeing. Promotion of public transport is also an important part of encouraging everyone to use their cars less – especially for short local journeys.
Our school travel plan involves the whole school with many activities embedded in the curriculum. We use assemblies and class discussions to promote issues such as road safety, the benefits of being active and the causes and effects of air pollution . A ‘hands up’ survey is completed each year to understand how our children get to and from school with a staff survey completed too. Our school newsletter regularly informs and promotes active and sustainable travel to our pupils’ families as well as news items on activities completed in school, local walks, free maps and initiatives from Lewisham Council or other organisations.
Reception children learn about sustainable travel as part of their ‘On The Move’ topic. In this topic, they learn about road safety and early mapping skills, undertake a traffic survey, make ‘bling’ for their scooters and undertake scooter training with our Eco TA (who is also our Tfl STARS champion) to name some of their many activities.
In Nursery, the ‘Help!’ topic sees the children learn about road safety, how professionals such as lollipop people and the emergency services keep us safe when we are near roads as well as different types of vehicles and why we need to travel actively.
The reading corners in every class include topic themed books whilst other activities such as art, small world areas and outdoor spaces explore the topic further.
Each year the whole school participates in the national ‘Big Pedal’ fortnight that promotes scootering and cycling to school and Year 2 undertake ‘Scooterbility’ sessions via Lewisham Council. Within the school grounds, we have a large scooter park and a separate cycle rack (although all items are left at your own risk.)
Many of our school trips are now undertaken on public transport or by walking if they are within the local area. Using public transport rather than coaches means less congestion on the roads and less pollution in the air – it is also free, courtesy of Tfl’s school party travel scheme. We do use coaches for some trips due to longer distances or timing restrictions.
If you have any further questions regarding our TfL STARS School travel plan please contact Zara Mitton (our school travel plan champion) via the school office.
