Support for your school

There is support and advice to help your school encourage safe, sustainable and active travel. Children, parents and teachers can take part in a range of activities and initiatives to make travelling to school a lot more fun.

• Swindon Borough Council offers cycle skills and training through Bikeability courses for Year 6 pupils.
• A “School Safe Environment Zone” project is rolling out across the borough.  This combines engineering works (like bollards, signs and zig zag markings) with behaviour change initiatives to reduce the risk of accidents around schools.  Read more about the project.
• Independent Travel Training aims to provide children and young people with experience and skills in travelling independently either by public transport, or on foot to their educational setting. The free training should increase independence and promote sustainable travel.
• Teachers and Parents can make use of our free Air Quality Toolkit for primary schools.   It contains more information on why air quality is important, alongside lesson plans for KS1, Lower KS2 and Upper KS2 , Air quality experiments, assembly plans and a raft of ideas for how your school can be part of the work to improve air quality in Swindon. Download the toolkit to make your school safe and environmentally friendly.

Modeshift STARS

A school travel plan can help your school become more active and sustainable and be rewarded for it by working towards a green, bronze, silver, gold or platinum level Modeshift STARS award. All of the activities we’ve mentioned can contribute towards the award. It’s completely free for schools to utilise.  You can contact us for more information and advice.

Funding your activities

The PE and sport premium funding can be applied for from the Department for Education for embedding physical activity into the school day through active travel to and from school.  One way this can be used is to fund Living Streets’ flagship walk to school initiative, WOW – the walk to school challenge and other active travel schemes.

Platform Rail Education

Platform is an award-winning rail education scheme that works with schools to empower young people in accessing the railways.  The scheme is fully funded for this year, and welcomes more applications from Swindon schools.  More information can be found on the Platform website, where you’ll also find a range of resources to use for all key stages.