Children at Widey Court Primary School have taken part in a competition to design a banner which will inspire families to reduce the damage to the environment and to their health caused by driving.
Shaun Nicholls, headteacher at Widey Court said:
“Most schools have issues with parking and congestion. Although schools are closed at the moment, we are still open to between 120 and 200 children of key workers and vulnerable children.
“We are actively trying to ease congestion and parking problems around our school while also encouraging children and families to make positive life choices such as walking to school or parking further away.
“This is particularly important now, when sports clubs and activities are not available to children.”
The school wanted children to understand the issues for themselves.
“We invited all our pupils to design a banner that would motivate their parents to drive less and walk more,” added Mr Nicholls.
“Anything we can do to reduce carbon emissions is a good thing for everyone – and perhaps walking to school would give people the opportunity to wave hello to other parents and have some social interaction which we’re all very short of.”
winning design
Around 100 children took part by submitting their designs. The winning design was created by Maddie Lord, a Year 5 pupil with a colourful and eye catching design. The design was sent to Vinyl Banners Printing to be made into three banners, each seven feet long, to be displayed outside the school.
Mr Nicholls added:
“We’re thrilled with the way the children got involved. The standard of designs has been so high – it was hard to pick a winning design but we have a worthy winner. Maddie is now working on another project, heading up a team of three children, to develop active travel across the school even further.”
Maddie said:
“I wanted to design a banner that was bright and simple to catch people’s eye, I also wanted to include the school colours. I love nature so I added bees, flowers and grass.
“Hopefully my banner will inspire people to travel to school by walking, cycling or scooting. If lots of people can do that, it will make the air around our school cleaner for us and the environment. It’s also much more fun and healthy to travel that way.”
Teacher Chris Rea, part of the Active Travel Team at Widey Court said:
“The school started teaching our new Ocean conservation curriculum this year and this supports the work we’re doing with them about ecology and pollution.
“Now we need to see whether we have been successful in inspiring parents to take action and help their children by walking to school.”
