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Backbeat

Take to the pavements!

Every year, Walk to School Week in May encourages children to give walking a go. Living Streets Chief Executive Tony Armstrong explains.

As part of National Walking Month in May, schools across the country will be striding out for Walk to School Week. This event takes place from 21 to 25 May and encourages pupils, parents and teachers to leave the car behind and give walking a go instead.

The charity Living Streets helps over 1.6 million children across 4,000 schools up and down the country to walk to school every year, thanks to their Walk to School campaign and Walk Once a Week (WoW) scheme. WoW rewards pupils with a character badge if they walk at least once a week. The quirky designs have become collectors’ items in playgrounds.

According to research by the Department for Transport, over the past two decades the number of primary school children walking to school has dropped from 62 to 48 per cent. An enormous 43 per cent are driven – despite the fact that most pupils live within a 20-minute walk of their school. Despite the decline in national walking levels, Living Streets is bucking the trend, with higher rates of walking in schools that take part in our activities. Walking not only helps a child meet the recommended 60 minutes of activity a day, it also helps them learn road safety skills and eases congestion around the school.

Living Streets works to create safe, attractive, enjoyable streets around the UK, where people want to walk. This year, Walk to School Week takes place as part of Living Streets’ Great British Walking Challenge, when the whole nation will be encouraged to take to their feet throughout May. It’s the perfect opportunity to get children to give walking a go.

This year we’re urging schools to use Walk to School Week as a way to increase walking levels. Free resources such as lesson plans, assemblies and campaign packs are all available to download from our website. For children who live a bit further from the school gates, a simple Park and Stride scheme, where parents park up and walk the remainder of the journey, can help pupils get some walking into their day.

We’re really excited about Walk to School Week this year and hope it spurs on lots of people to take part. It’s an excellent platform for the whole school to get walking.

The barriers to walking are often talked about, but we are keen to see schools get behind our campaign and make walking the natural choice for parents and children once more.

Encourage some healthy competition between year groups and use our free online resources to help children understand the benefits of walking more regularly, not just for their health, but for their safety and their local community.

For more information, visit www.walktoschool.org.uk