School Travel Plan

School Travel Plans

Everybody knows how much easier it is to travel when the streets are clear during the school holidays.

With more children being driven to school than ever before, blocked roads and congested school gates are a familiar sight. Whilst our catchment area is rural and dispersed, a significant proportion of our children live within walking or cycling distance of their school so it makes sense to give parents and children some school-run alternatives.

School Travel Plans (STPs) are a key tool used to manage traffic and transport across the borough. A STP is a plan that sets out how a school intends to increase levels of walking, cycling and use of public transport for the journey to and from school.

It is developed through a partnership involving the school, the Council (in particular transport and education), the Police, the health authority and the community. It is based on consultation and engagement with teachers, parents, pupils, governors/boards and other local people.

Travel planning – the act of implementing travel plans – is the real focus. All schools are engaged in travel planning. The STP programme aims to encourage, promote and support in working towards a healthy, safe and lively whole school community.

Benefits

A STP is about much more than simply making sure children can get to school on time. By giving children, parents and staff alternatives to using the car every day for the journey to and from school, there are plenty of other benefits:

• Improved safety of pupils due to less traffic.
• Less congestion around the school and in the local community.
• Healthier, happier, more alert pupils, thanks to active travel. For example cycling and walking.
• Less pollution around the school and local area.
• Improvements to cycling and walking routes including safer places to cross the road.
• Improved bike storage at schools through local grants and government funding.
• Improved road awareness of pupils.
• Greater staff health and well being.
• Improved journey reliability for staff, pupils and parents.

The Aims of St. Mary’s School’s School Travel Plan

The implementation of our School Travel Plan aims to encourage a healthy lifestyle and provide initiatives for our children to make a positive contribution. This will work hand in hand with our school curriculum and other eco-friendly initiatives with the aim of providing a healthy and environmentally aware generation for the 21st century.

The school also share Eco-Schools and Healthy Schools aims:

• To make every school in the country sustainable and to bring about behaviour change in young people and those connected to them, so that good habits learned in school are followed through into homes and communities.
• To help raise pupil achievement.
• To help raise social inclusion.
• To help raise health inequalities.

Whilst we are not eligible to engage with the STARS programme (Transport for London) we have liaised with them to access their resources and links to helpful information. https://stars.tfl.gov.uk/Explore/Idea