Posted on Thursday 16th May 2019
Parents and pupils travelling to school as a Walking Bus
School children from across Staffordshire will be putting their best foot forward when they take to the streets for this year’s Walk to School Week.
The campaign, which starts on Monday 20 May, is encouraging children to join in with the national festival of walking. This year in Staffordshire 18,000 pupils will be taking part.
2019 is also the 20th Anniversary of the Walking Bus scheme in Staffordshire and to celebrate this, the Active School Travel Team will be joining the latest Walking Bus at John Wheeldon Primary Academy in Stafford.
Staffordshire continues to lead the way when it comes to encouraging more parents and children to actively travel to school with over 63 Walking Buses across the county. A Walking Bus is like a normal bus but on foot. It takes the same route to school every day, picking up children along the way. Trained parent volunteers walk the children safely to school and everyone on the Walking Bus wears a high visibility waistcoat.
Helen Fisher, Cabinet Member for Highways and Transport at Staffordshire County Council said:
“We’ve been working closely with schools over the last few years to encourage more parents and their children to walk to school.
Walking or even scooting or cycling to school has so many benefits for the community and it’s something we are keen to see more of. Not only does it help to keep families fit and healthy but it helps to ease congestion and reduce air pollution outside our busy schools.”
The county council’s school travel team also facilitates Bikeability, scooter training, and the Staffordshire STARS school travel planning scheme, working in partnership with schools helping to improve physical health, air quality and ease congestion outside schools.