Back to School… by Bike???

Posted byDaniel ChaplenPosted inUncategorized

Over the past months we have become accustom to traveling by a more sustainable means. Walking and cycling have become a must.

The benefits to health, wellbeing and the environment are clear, the question is: once we find our new normal, will it continue?

With schools beginning to welcome back children, more staff are returning to work, so could this be an opportunity to make sustainable commuting more achievable for all?

There are clear barriers to commuting by bike into school, not least of all how hard it is to cycle with a bag full of marking. This doesn’t however make it unachievable and the benefits of more staff walking, scooting and cycling into school are huge for school leaders:

Benefits

  • Staff are happier creating a more enjoyable working environment
  • Staff are healthier, leading to less sick days
  • Staff will be setting active examples to the children by living active healthy lifestyles
  • Your car park will be quieter, meaning the space could be re-used in another way
  • Staff have the ability to commute together, creating staff team building opportunities
Cycle 2 Work schemes are a great and affordable way to promote cycling to your employees and colleagues
A scooter is great for a short commute, it’s easy to store in the classroom or on the bus if your stop is a short distance from school

Small Changes

  • Creating a space where staff can lock their bikes up safely
  • Ensuring staff can have access to an area to change and freshen up
  • Helping staff arrange a ‘park and stride’ scheme or a ‘walk and ride’ scheme (parking further out and walking the rest of the way in, or walking part of the way in and then ride sharing with another colleague the rest of the way)
  • Signing up to your Cycle to Work Scheme (for Academies this can be done by the school, for LA schools your Council will need to have signed up)
  • Creating a reward scheme that promotes staff commuting sustainably.  

Test the waters

  • Using challenges such as a ‘steps completed’ leader board would be a great way to see how many staff are keen and able to walk into work.
  • If you have staff who already cycle into work, speak to them and ask them what their pros and cons are when cycling, how can you use their knowledge to make the act more accessible to all.
  • Organise a fundraiser/challenge between classes for active travel miles into school, the twist is teacher miles count as double, this will encourage the adults to find a way to contribute to their classes total at the same time as realising how accessible it is to them.  
Step challenges are a great way to get multiple people involved with the need to re-invent the wheel.

Encouraging staff to change the way they commute is never easy, however using simple changes linked with our current change in situation there may not be a better time to make active travel a thing of our future!

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