St Charles pupils put best feet forward

Mar 18 2009 by Kenny Smith, Rutherglen Reformer

ST CHARLES Primary in Cambuslang are the latest school to sign up to South Lanarkshire Council's WOW scheme - Walk On Wednesday.

The council's Road Safety Team visited the school recently to promote the scheme, which aims to help reduce the number of children who are consistently driven to school.

They aim to increase their level of physical activity.

WOW has a target that children should walk to school at least once a week and the more often the better.

WOW targets primary five children as this group are more likely to be progressing towards independent travel. It is also hoped the scheme will encourage sustainable travel habits in these children for now and for the future.

Children in the scheme will receive a passport-style diary which will be ticked when they have walked to school. They will also receive a "goody" four times a year when they have fulfilled their commitment to walk to school.

Within the WOW diary, there are four calendars:

Back to school, August to October break.

October to December.

January to Spring holidays.

April to Summer holidays.

The WOW diary requires to be ticked / marked when pupils have walked to school and it’s being left to schools to determine the most convenient approach for their individual requirements..

A nominated person (P5 teacher, office staff, JRSO) should be chosen from each school and the P5 children asked to approach that person during a chosen time period to have their diary marked.

It is accepted that not all children are able to walk to school.

That's why the Road Safety Team will accept children participating in WOW who Park and Stride to school (Park and Stride is where the parent or guardian parks a short distance away and the child walks the rest of the way).

At the end of each calendar period, the number of children who have fulfilled their commitment to walk to school should be e-mailed to the Road Safety Team for prompt distribution of the "goody".

Anyone who requires any further information on WOW, School Travel Plans or Road Safety should contact the Road Safety Team on 01698 453 620.

Chair of South Lanarkshire Council's Roads Safety Forum, councillor John Murray, said: "The WOW scheme is a great way to encourage children to walk to school.

"As well as the obvious health benefits, if more children walked to school it would mean a reduction in the amount of cars around the school gates, which is a huge problem and causes many accidents outside our schools.

"We would hope as the children get older they would walk to school more than once a week but as a starting point WOW gives them the knowledge, skills and experience they need. Congratulations on St Charles Primary School in becoming the latest to sign up for WOW."