Well, we've had our first meeting and it went really well... Apart from the fact that loads of us had exams, so we had to get started without them! We have a huge issue to deal with at St Bede's, since our school looks out onto a main road with a 40mph speed limit (which not everyone seems to stick to!). So we've decided that the aim of our campaign is...

To make walking to school safer for students by:

* improving students' awareness of the dangers of the main road

* making drivers more aware of the need to stick to the speed limit and take extra care when passing our school

* showing local decision makers the dangerous road we have to cross first hand, and presenting them with our suggestions to improve road safety for our students

Watch this space to find out how we will get our message across and what solutions we come up with to make walking to school safer...

24 June

More news on our campaign... We met tonight and discussed how we would tackle our three aims. We would really like to speak with some local decision makers as soon as possible to see how we can get our message across to drivers. We are thinking of some kind of sign or banner to get our message across, but without causing further danger. When we meet next time we are going to plan how we get more students on board with our campaign, and on 1 July we have invited all students along to an after school session to find out more about our project. Hopefully that will go really well - we'll let you know soon!

30 June 2010

Our meeting went really well today. We didn't get the turn out we'd hoped for by inviting more students along(not every form tutor read out our message - grrrr), but we did get 2 new members: Naomi and Owen! Last time we met we mentioned it would be good to do a Lord Kitchener style poster to get people's attention (St Bede's Needs You!), so Sarah, who's working with us on the project made one with Daniel's face on it. Now we want to make loads more posters with famous faces on to get our fellow student's attention and encourage them to sign up to show their support for our campaign. We discussed doing posters with Bob Marley on, William Shakespeare (To be or not to be safe?) and Albert Einstein (To be or not to be safe) - keep a look out for the posters on her once we've created them! Once we've made them, we hope one of them will be suitable to become a large scale sign to get our message across to drivers (like the Think Bike campaign). Finally... we also met with Andy today from the Area Action Partnership (AAP) and are meeting with local residents and local decision makers on 15 July to discuss our plans and get some more support - it turns out making Lanchester safer for pedestrians is one of the AAP's priorities too.

15 July 2010

We had a bit of a different meeting tonight as we were invited to attend the Lanchester Parish Council's 'Gateway Project' meeting. It seems we're not the only people concerned about the roads near our school – far from it! We were in good company as representatives from the Council, the Police, the Highways Department, the AAP and the Lanchester Partnership were there.

Discussion about our project was on the agenda and it was really great to have our say, especially as everyone is keen to support our campaign! While reducing the speed limit outside school may take a long time, there are plans to raise road users' awareness, like putting rumble strips on the surface of the road to remind drivers not to speed up as they come out of the 30mph zone. There may also be a chance for us to work with the Police and use the community speed check cameras – it would be brilliant if we could get out there and really let people know we're serious about this campaign!

As the summer holidays are just around the corner, we'll be taking a well earned rest from school, but will be back in September ready and raring to go so that we can move our campaign forward!

15 September

A really active and creative meeting this week; wonderful and hopefully inspirational posters are now well and truly in production! Our week of invading year group assemblies is scheduled so this week we planned the basic lay-out of our presentation and some of us set to with the making of PowerPoints etc. Hopefully our assemblies will inspire the year groups to join us in the campaign and project; we hope they'll be able to do this through an online survey which will be accessible via the school network! So it's all stations go at the moment!

20 September

More of the same! Our powerpoint's done and our assemblies are planned - we are getting a bit nervous now. We've got another 'Gateway Project' meeting next week, then four mornings of assemblies...

October 2010

From the 3r d October to the 8th October we presented to Years 7, 8, 9, 10 & 11. It went well, with us gaining over 5 more volunteers. We have also had a good response from our online survey.

17th November 2010

We started to look at getting in to contact with local decision makers. During the meeting, some members suggested talking to the local MP Pat Glass. We began to prepare a document to give to Mrs Glass to tell her about whom we are and what we do. We are making good progress towards our aims and hope to continue our group work tomorrow.

December 2010

One of the best outcomes to come out of the Lanchester Gateway Meetings so far is our partnesrhip work with Consett Police. We have managed to arrange to take part in th eir Community Speedwatch Events, which will be held on the road outside of school! The Police were really great - they showed us how the speed monitoring device worked, gave us our high visibility jackets and we set about watching the traffic. It was incredible just how many cars slowed right down when they saw us, so we definitely made a difference. We're hoping to continue these events at different times of the day so that we can monitor how vehicle speeds affects the safety of the road. Watch this space for more updates!!

Step Up Blog January – March 2011

What a start to the year it's been! Our Step Up Campaign continues to grow in school and the local community, which is great. We've done a few more speedwatch events with Consett Police, which continue to highlight how busy the road is outside school, but the most exciting t hi ng f or us was receiving an Award from the High Sheriff of Durham in March, in recognition for our hard work and achievement in enhancing the life of the community.

Josh, Daniel and Rebecca attended the Shrievalty Awards Ceremony at Durham Castle to receive their certificate and some funding on behalf of all the Step Up Ambassadors. The High Sheriff, Mr. Bernard Robinson, said: "The Shr ievalty Awa rds recognise a very special group of young people who have set a fine example to us all. They have made a significant contribution to the community and the award ceremony recognises their special achievement." So we're really pleased with that!

It was a fantastic day, complete with a tour of the Castle and a delicious lunch! However, we're not resting on our laurels – the campaign continues and we're now looking at even bigger and better ways to get our message out there!!

We'll be updating our page regularly. Keep coming back! And do visit our school website at http://www.stbedes.durham.sch.uk/site/