Bicycle Network: Success stories
National Ride2School Day highlights
Running a special event on National Ride2School Day is a great way to promote riding, walking, skating and scooting in your school community. See how these schools celebrated!
No better way to spend an autumn morning
The power of peer influence
Ride, walk, skate and scoot to Brunswick South West
Street Art Inspiration
Kingston Primary wheelie in the habit!
No better way to spend an autumn morning
National Ride2school Day provided the perfect opportunity for teacher at Bega High School, Vincent Weafer, to promote riding to school to his students.
Organising a group ride of over 30 students was the perfect way to do this and the students thoroughly enjoyed the 20km commute to school. “It was a lovely ride, a great way to start the day and it’s all about encouraging young people to be more active," says Vincent.
Vincent is a keen cyclist, commuting 19km on his bike 3 times a week. He acts as a role model for students, and shows that despite distance or poor cycling facilities, it can be done and the rewards are great.
“People often say there’s no time to fit exercise into their day, but riding to work or school is a great way to get some exercise going somewhere you have to go anyway and save fuel at the same time.”
“When we got out there last year, everyone agreed there was no better way to spend an autumn morning.”
Vincent is now keen to keep the motivation high at the school, planning another group ride on Ride2Work Day in October this year.
The power of peer influence
At Castlemaine Primary School, National Ride2School Day was an amazing success. Principal Peter McConnell expected to see 50 bikes arrive in the morning which would have proved to be a great turn out. Instead, students really embraced the day with 111 riders, walkers, skaters and scooters streaming through the school gate!
Peter attributes this success to giving the responsibility of organising, promoting and running the event to the ‘enviro-warriors’ student leadership group. Setting the bar high, the enviro-warriors went to work promoting the event with presentations, posters, fliers, footpath art and offered a free morning tea for participants on the day.
As Peter says, ‘it is the power of peer influence’ that has made this year’s National Ride2School Day so successful. Peter plans to keep encouraging the group to keep up the great work as he hopes “…people have got a taste for how much fun riding to school can be and [I hope that] we see more of it on other days”.
Ride, walk, skate and scoot to Brunswick South West
A visit from ABC News on Wednesday morning certainly helped the celebrations as Brunswick South West Primary. There were bikes and scooters everywhere and enthusiasm and energy to match. Students happily posed behind the camera as the ABC News crew performed their live feed back to the studio and out to homes across the state. After the media obligations were done the students really let loose, celebrating with fun filled laps of the school grounds.
Brunswick South West Primary is one of the Ride2School Program's star schools and it was fantastic to see how passionate about riding and walking the teachers, parents and students were. The school is currently in the process of converting some old school toilet blocks into bike parking for the growing number of riders at the school. Parents at the school are driving the project and funds raised through the Super Tuesday Bike Count are helping the new bike parking take shape.
The school HandsUp! captains were happy to show us their developing bike parking structure before their morning duties began - collecting HandsUp! results from each class in the school.
An awesome morning at an awesome school!
Bruswick South West students with the ABC News crew (left) and Ride2School Champion teacher Maurice Ryan with his squad of HandsUp! Captains (right).
Street Art Inspiration
National Ride2School Day was celebrated in a big way at Monterey Secondary College
Gaining inspiration from the Ride2School street art project, the students decided to give their bike compound some much needed TLC.The finished result is very impressive!
On National Ride2School Day, the school:
- Revealed their students' completed artwork
- Hosted a BBQ in which 400 sausages were donated by the local butcher, with bread from the local bakery
- Invited members of the Ride2School team to attend, along with parents and friends of the wider school community and the local bike shop owners.
“The support everyone has shown has been truly inspiring to say the least”, said teacher Frank Russo. “Seeing the students hard at work but with big smiles on their face makes my day”.
National Ride2School Day and the Ride2School program is all about community and we are proud of Monterey College for all the work they are putting in to make riding, skating and scooting a part of their school’s culture.
“Hopefully our effort will inspire more people next year to follow suit”, says Frank. We hope so too Frank!
The busy BBQ! Staff from Peninsula Star Cycles doing bike maintenance checks
The fantastic finished wall!
Kingston Primary wheelie in the habit!
National Ride2School Day at Kingson Primary School in Tasmania bought bikes, scooters and a lot of happy faces.
Zigzag manoeuvring, one way streets, slow riding and speed riding were just some of the obstacle courses the students could ride or scoot through on their way into school, while a helmet decorating competition made for an interesting and enjoyable assembly.
Getting into the community spirit, the local bike shop supported the schools involvement by donating prizes to participating students.
In the lead up to National Ride2School Day, the school instigated a walking school bus and held a walkathon fundraising event to raise money for a new bike shed... this came in very handy on the day!
Angela, teacher at the school, said that "due to the interest and success of the day we intend to have our own bike/scooter day each term to further promote this activity".
National Ride2School Day is all about showing the school community that walking and wheeling to school is fun and easy and encouraging students to keep it up throughout the entire year.
Well done Kingston Primary for turning a yearly event into a celebration each school term!
