Travel to School

Make sure you are seen on your journey to school by wearing something bright'

1. Healthy body: Daily exercise has numerous physical health benefits including helping to reduce the risk of childhood obesity and medical conditions in later life such as cancer and heart disease.
2. Health and happiness: Regular walking helps to keep young minds healthy and alert ready for their arrival at school.
3. Healthy habits: Getting into the habit of an energetic walk at the start of the day will also encourage healthy eating habits such as having a nutritious breakfast every morning.
4. Healthy friends and family: The walk to school is the perfect opportunity for some quality family time or a good chat with friends helping to develop strong, happy relationships.
5. Healthy environment: And don’t forget that walking rather than taking motorised transport means less pollution and cleaner air – a benefit for everyone .

At Clyst Heath School we recognise that we must make it possible for children to walk, cycle or take the bus to school safely. Achieving this helps our children to grow up healthily and independently, whilst enriching their education and the environment. We have a School Travel Plan, which is an effective way of providing opportunities for the school to change its travel habits and reduce its dependency on the car where possible.

Our School Travel Plan aims to:

• Promote walking and cycling to school
• Maintain a safe environment for walkers and cyclists
• Encourage new members of the school to walk or cycle

It helps us to:

• Reduce car travel, danger, congestion and pollution outside school
• Encourage pupils and staff to walk and cycle in safety and in a more pleasant environment.
• Focus on travel issues through the curriculum, for example, through Geography, IT, Citizenship and PSHE

In order to keep this we need as many of you to keep walking, scooting or cycling to school as is possible.

How can you help?

• Walk with your child
• Enable your child to cycle or scoot, if possible.
• Allowing them growing independence to walk with friends as they get older
• Parking at a distance from school and walk the rest – ‘Park & Stride’
• Sharing your car with others when you can

As an added benefit, with the increasing cost of fuel, driving less or car sharing is also a way to save money. 90% of wear and tear to your car happens in the first 30 seconds of a journey so short journeys are particularly bad.

Where ever possible please try to make part of your journey to school active.

Thank you

Please look at our Walking Zone leaflet