Exeter students jump on their bikes for national school run challenge

Students at West Exe School, part of the Ted Wragg Trust, are taking part in the 15th celebration of Sustrans #BigWalkAndWheel, the UK's largest inter-school walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling challenge.  Sustrans is a UK based walking, wheeling and cycling charity, and the custodian of the National Cycle Network. 

The challenge aims to inspire hundreds of thousands of students to get active on the school run and over a period of 10 days, schools record the number of students walking, scooting or cycling to school.  Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel inspires students to improve air quality in their neighbourhood and discover how these changes benefit their world.

At West Exe School, they are using sports leaders to go around to tutors each day and record the numbers for how students got to school.  The school is going to award prizes for the tutor group with the highest number across the 10 days in each year group and a prize for the overall tutor leading the scoreboard across all five years.  As a school, West Exe is also competing against different schools from across the country.

Currently over two thousand schools are taking part across the country with 728, 953 children taking part, Sustrans has a live journey counter on their website, showing all the journeys that have been taken so far. 

According to Cycling UK, on average just 2.2% of children cycle to school and 35.4% are driven, they estimate that if  just one child cycled to school instead of travelling by car for a year, it would save almost half a tonne in carbon dioxide emissions, equivalent to growing eight trees for a decade or charging 58,388 mobile phones.

Julie Fossey, Headteacher at West Exe School said: “I am so proud that we are taking part in Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel challenge. Over 200 children at West Exe cycle to the school everyday and we also have a very active staffing body, many of whom choose to beat the traffic and ride in daily. 

“ I am delighted that so many of our students make the choice to cycle in everyday and we will continue to support others to complete the training needed to feel safe and confident cycling to school.”