Bicycle Network: Teachers
Getting the wheels turning to make riding 'normal'
Students can be easily influenced by peers and what is seen as 'cool', but we have tools to help get your school started on making walking and riding not just acceptable, but a 'normal' part of your school culture.
Charting the progress of regular riders
Walking Wheeling Wednesdays
Make every Wednesday a Walking Wheeling Wednesday! Get students into the habit of actively travelling to school once per week and show them how easy, fun and achievable active travel is all the time.
The aim of nominating one day of the week as a day of active travel, is to create longer-term, habitual changes in active travel frequency.
Here are five easy steps to getting started:
1: Register with the Ride2School program and submit HandsUp! results
Schools that regularly enter HandsUp! results average 45% active travel compared to the Victorian state average of 20%.
To enter your HandsUp! results, you must be registered with the Ride2School program. Registration is quick, easy and free. Register today.
2: Announcements
Every Tuesday have loudspeaker announcements to remind students to 'walk and wheel tomorrow'.
3: Let parents know
Put a note in the school newsletter or send home flyers. Parents are key change agents so it is vital to get their support.
4: Promote the day
Set posters up around your school to act as a reminder and prompt for students. Download a pdf of the Ride2School poster or let your students design their own posters.
5: Give out stickers, certificates or stamps
Students love receiving recognition as they ride or walk into the school gates.
You could appoint student leaders to do this for you.
Download the 5 solutions sheet to be combined as a package to get Walking and Wheeling Wednesdays successful at your school or schools within your council.
Frequent Rider Passports
This is a tool that has been successfully implemented in countless schools.
The great thing about the passports is that they can be used to reward riding and walking while building confidence and making active travel a normal, regular and acceptable behaviour. How the passports typically work is that each student who rides or walks is given a laminated passport, and a lanyard to attach it to. Around the edge of the passport are numbered squares which are punched with a hole each time the student rides or walks to school. This way the students keep a record of their progress.
The passports work so well because they give students an incentive to consistently travel to school actively. Some schools attach additional prize incentives for levels of achievement i.e. number of clicks on the passport. the passports have been successful with giving students pride in the accomplishment, motivation to continue to ride and walk and added responsibility.
Get the passports going at your school in 5 easy steps:
1. Download and print the Frequent Rider Passport template
2. You could stamp your school name on the back and laminate the passports
3. Write the student's name on the passport with a permanent marker
4. Nominate clickers or counters - students responsible for 'clicking' the passports each day (this could also be done in classroom at roll call in the morning or PE teachers)
5. Optional - offer prize incentives (e.g. completed passports go into a draw to win a prize each month, or classrooms can compete for the Active Travel Trophy each month)
Charting the progress of regular riders
At Wilmot Road Primary School in Shepparton, bike riders keep a tally of how often they ride to school by filling in a Regular Rider Chart. The chart shows that a growing number of students are using their bikes to get to school. Other schools can follow their example by using a chart developed by Ride2School.
The Regular Rider Chart is on display in the corridor at Wilmot Road. It is easy for the bike riders to colour in a square for each day they ride. (Stamps or stickers could also be used to fill the squares.) The students enjoy following their growing total, and comparing with others. The competitive nature of the chart encourages increasing levels of participation. As a further incentive, small prizes are on offer for when students reach milestones. These are presented at school assemblies.
PE teacher Sally Nayler, who devised the chart, says it's been popular with students and is an easy activity to organise. She also says that because the students keep a close watch on others' progress, cheating is not a problem.
Schools wishing to run a similar scheme can download Ride2School's Regular Rider Chart. It is best copied onto an A3 sheet of paper.
Active Travel Trophies
Active Travel Trophies are a simple but effective incentive to increase active travel and acceptance of this among students. Why not make up an Active Travel Trophy for your school? Sometimes a little bit of healthy competition between classrooms can act as an added incentive to get more students riding and walking more often.
Two schools that have tried this tool successfully are Boronia Heights Primary School and Ivanhoe East Primary School.
Boronia Heights Primary School
I thought you might be interested in seeing the trophy I organised for our ride to school day and then for monthly winners of our active travel surveys, which we will do each week. The kids love the trophy and are already keen to win it for their class!
Meredith Johnston, Teacher
Ivanhoe East Primary School
"We've started the 'active travel trophy' at our school. The class who has the most participants on the survey day each month gets to keep the trophy in their classroom for that month. A bit of wood, gold paint, an old shoe and a toy bike and we have a trophy. It's been a hit with the kids." Ruth Perkins, Parent
Student Leadership
Empower your students with the opportunity to be leaders of active travel as Active Travel Ambassadors (ATAs). The Ride2School Program gives students the opportunity to display their leadership skills and take charge of getting their peers to walk and ride to school. Make this something your students strive for by recognising their efforts and position of leadership and influence.
Active Travel Ambassadors can be responsible for promoting in a variety of ways:
- collecting HandsUp! and entering results into your portal
- presenting at assemblies
- taking on a project like Walking Wheeling Wednesdays, Part Way is OK, Frequent Rider/Walker passports or HandsUp! count competitions
- creating posters
- announcing HandsUp! results on the PA and displaying graphs in newsletters
Download template. We have prepared Active Travel Ambassador template badges you can print, laminate and give to the elected Active Travel Ambassadors in your school to place on a lanyard or string!