International Walk to School Month
International Walk to School Month
Ask the Davies Sports team about their passions and all of them will talk about activity and sport! We really do believe that inspiring our next generations to participate in something and love movement, whatever that is, will instil a healthy sense of PLAY from an early age.
That’s why we love initiatives such as International Walk to School Month which runs this October. School children from all corners of the UK will be encouraged to join pupils across the world in walking, scooting or wheeling to school instead of using motorised transport. This is in a bid to reverse a declining trend in children walking to school which the Department for Transport revealed in 2021 was as low as 30% in both the North West and North East of England, 44% in Wales and 45% in Scotland.
How we can support
Need some ideas to kick-start your Walking to School campaign? Take a look at some of our suggestions and related products to give you inspiration.
- Make the walk to school fun with a pedometer. Ask the children to count their steps to school and identify how many urban animals and birds there are along the way. Develop their awareness skills and help them learn more about their local area
- Are there interesting local landmarks that can only be accessed along a walking school route? Can the distance between these and the school be measured with a trundle wheel?
- Teach children about road safety and how to be street smart when they’re walking to school. What hazards can they look out for along their route? The Government’s Think! initiative has a source of lesson plans for road safety here to give you some inspiration
- Children are acutely aware of climate change and the environmental factors impacting their local communities. Ask them to count and record the number of cars that pass them as they wait at a pedestrian crossing – are they surprised by the amount of traffic?
- Develop conversion skills and increase activity rates by recording walk times to school – can children convert miles to kilometres? Can they beat their walk time by a minute over the course of the month? How many calories do they burn? Create tick sheets and monitor charts to help them track their progress and increase motivation
There are useful resources for lesson planning by Living Streets, which coordinates National Walk to School Month. Take a look at the lesson plans below.
Walk to School KS1 Lesson Plan
Walk to School KS2 Lesson Plan
Love our ideas? Shop the products below!
