Essex school top of class in East for active sustainable travel

Woodville Primary School, South Woodham Ferrers, founder member of FennWood Academy Trust, hailed as shining example to other schools across the county.

A school in Essex has received Platinum accreditation for its travel plan encouraging active and sustainable travel and has been judged the top school in the East of England for active sustainable travel.

Woodville Primary School in South Woodham Ferrers received the platinum accreditation, the highest award available within the scheme, from national organisation Modeshift STARS after working closely with Essex County Council.

A travel plan is a strategy a school puts together to support more pupils walking, scooting or cycling to school.  This includes a ‘park-and-stride’ initiative whereby parents and carers opt to park in local car parks and walk to school from there, thus reducing the negative effects of the school run on roads in the area and improving safety for youngsters and their families.

On top of achieving Platinum accreditation, on Friday 25th March, Woodville School was named STARS East of England Primary School of the Region 2021/22 coming top for active sustainable travel out of all the schools in Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.

Cllr Lee Scott, Essex County Council Cabinet member for Highways Maintenance and Sustainable Transport, visited the school to present the Platinum accreditation award to pupils and teachers and thank the school for their pioneering work.

Cllr Scott said: “Achieving Platinum accreditation for a school travel plan is no mean feat and I’m proud to see the young people at Woodville Primary School are leading the way in the fight against climate change, finding ways to stay safe on their journey to school and helping reduce air pollution.”

“School travel plans are an extremely important tool for promoting sustainable travel in Essex as part of our Safer, Greener, Healthier campaign. We want families to feel safe enough to leave their cars at home for the school run as it benefits everyone in their area as well as the environment.”

“Hopefully the achievements of Woodville Primary School can be a shining example to other schools across Essex.”

Woodville Primary School has enacted a raft of other initiatives during the development of its bespoke travel plan over the past 20 years. These have had a noticeable impact on journeys to school with fewer cars being used and more pupils travelling sustainably.

To achieve Platinum status in the scheme the school had to:

• Promote sustainable travel, embracing it as the norm through the school community
• Hold pupil travel surveys for four years
• Achieve a reduction of at least five per cent in car use on the journey to and from school
• Be able to show the levels of active travel – walking, scooting and cycling – have risen by at least 5 per cent over this time (35% increase in children walking, cycling, scooting or park and striding since September 2019)

Ms Jacqui Phillips Headteacher of Woodville Primary School said: “Since 2019, many factors have had a negative impact on the emotional health and wellbeing of all school communities.  We saw an opportunity through the Modeshift Stars Scheme to improve this situation, for example through the 3PR scheme which encourages children not only  to walk to school, but also the chance to share more quality time with other members of their family.”

“In April 2021 we launched the Living Streets ‘WOW’ scheme, where all the children log their daily commute to school on a dojo on the Living Streets website.  All those children who travel sustainably at least 3 times a week receive a WOW badge provided by Living Streets at the end of each month. The impact and popularity of this scheme has been fantastic, support from children and their families has made this such a success. For example, in September 2021 over 300 of our children (out of 415) travelled sustainably at least 3 times a week and were very excited to receive their badge.”

Schools across Essex are encouraged to sign up to create their own travel plan. Essex County Council can provide support throughout the process.

One of ECC’s Sustainable Travel Planning Officers will offer their expertise and assistance. Schools move through the levels of accreditation, with the ability to attain the next level the following term.

To get started, you can either register your school on the Modeshift STARS website

at https://modeshiftstars.org or contact travelplanteam@essex.gov.uk or 0333 013 9390.

Find out more about travel plans at www.essex.gov.uk/sustainable-travel.