Get involved with Walk to School Month
For local authorities
Walk to School Week May 08
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If you are a travel planner, health promotion, MP or road safety officer, Living Streets is here to support you with organising Walk to School Month events.
Here are a few tips to get you started:
Help your schools to develop their own campaigns. Be available to discuss ideas and provide advice and support.
Raise awareness. Here is our current press release which is adaptable according to your local area, so download it here and send it along to your local press.
Get a personal contact at each school. Talk to them, rather than sending a generic letter or email, and find out more about any health promotion or road safety activities that are already going on in the school.
Teachers are busy. They get so many requests to take part in activities and share information with their classes. Make sure campaigns are simple and easy to carry out, and clearly explain how they can be incorporated into the curriculum and other school activities, eg travel plans and healthy schools initiatives.
Keep in touch! Talk to your contacts regularly. Let them know about events and activities at other schools in the area and around the country.
Make sure they have the Walk to School Month resources pack. If you need more copies, you can order more resources here.
Contact Living Streets walktoschool@livingstreets.org.uk for loads of ideas and advice to help you make Walk to School Month a huge success in your area.
Take a look at how other schools and local authorities have played their part in Walk to School activities.
Get involved - For parents
If you'd like to see your child's school take part in Walk to School Month, there are lots of things you can do to help make this happen.
Here are a few ideas:
Get in touch with your local authority. Your school travel adviser, road safety officer, or health promotion officer can help you think about how getting involved in the campaign will benefit your school and encourage people there to get involved. They'll have leaflets and other resources to support your campaign.
Offer to help organise events. They don't have to take up much of your time. Work with your local authority and enlist other parents to help too.
Remember, you don't have to persuade parents and children to walk all the way to school. Why not suggest a Park and Stride scheme where parents leave their cars a 10 or 15 minute walk from the school and stride in the rest of the way?
Get the children involved. If they're excited about walking to school and busy talking about it to their friends, it'll help persuade teachers and parents to get onboard.
If there's a problem on the streets in your area – parking issues, traffic congestion, or no safe place to cross the road near the school – you can use Walk to School Month to draw attention to the issue. Living Streets can help, find out more on the Living Streets website here:
Why not launch a road safety campaign as part of Walk to School Month? The road safety charity Brake has safety tips for parents and young people on its website: http://www.brake.org.uk/index.php?p86
“Walking to school has always been enjoyable for my son as he rides his scooter most mornings. He feels the benefits of the exercise as he starts his school day awake and full of energy.” Michael Junor, parent, Surrey.
Have you taken part in Walk to School events? Are you planning any this year? We'd love to hear about it. Get in touch and tell us how you've made a difference to children in your area at walktoschool@livingstreets.org.uk
Get involved – For schools
If your school wants to take part, contact your local authority or Living Streets at: walktoschool@livingstreets.org.uk
See what other schools have been up to here
Get involved – For MP's
Download our press release and show your support for Walk to School Month by sending it to your local press.
You can also download a short briefing about the event.
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