School Travel Policy

March 2025

Monitored by Ms Jas Kalra

At Tudor Primary School we encourage pupils, parents and staff to travel actively to school by walking, cycling and scooting wherever possible.

This school travel policy explains how Tudor Primary School will be encouraging active travel. We will discuss the policy with the pupils and re-visit it periodically to ensure its relevance. This policy has been agreed by Head teacher/ senior management team / governors].  

For pupils and staff who are unable to walk, cycle or scoot their whole journey to and from school, we encourage the use of public transport, car share.

What are the benefits of active travel?

• Improves mental health leading to improved attendance and academic success
• Improves physical health, helping pupils to achieve the recommended minimum of 60 minutes of physical activity per day
• Promotes independence and improves road safety awareness
•  Reduces congestion and noise in the community
• Improves air quality around the school

In order to ensure as many pupils as possible are given the opportunity to realise these benefits we each have an important role to play:

  Staff

We will encourage pupils to travel to and from school more safely and actively by:

• Promoting the benefits of active travel
• Celebrating the achievements of those who travel actively to school
• Raising awareness of the air quality benefits of active travel
• Providing cycle and scooter storage on the school site
• Providing cycle and scooter training to all pupils who wish to participate
• Ensuring we update our school travel plan annually and that it is accredited under TfL Travel for Life (Sustainable Travel: Active, Responsible, Safe) scheme
• Working with our borough school travel and road safety officers to deliver interventions and activities that promote active, safe and responsible travel to school

Pupils

To make active travel a positive experience for everybody concerned, we expect our pupils to:

• • Behave in a sensible, safe and respectful manner and to consider the needs of others when travelling
  • Use lights and high-visibility clothing where appropriate and consider wearing a cycle helmet
  • Check that their bicycle or scooter is roadworthy and well maintained
  • Follow the rules of the road (Highway Code) when travelling

Parents and Carers

For the wellbeing of our pupils, we expect parents/carers to:

• • Encourage their child to travel actively to school
  • Consider walking, cycling or scooting with their child
  • Encourage their child to take up opportunities to develop their competence and confidence in walking cycling and scooting
  • Provide their child with safety equipment as appropriate, which may include high-visibility clothing, lights, cycle helmet and a lock
  • Ensure that the bicycles and scooters ridden to school are roadworthy and well maintained

Activities in School

• • Bikeability - Bikeability is the ‘cycling proficiency’ test for the 21st century, designed to give the next generation the skills and confidence to ride their bikes on today’s roads. Each year, pupils in Year 5 & 6 at Tudor Primary School carry out Bikeabilty training both on site as well as in and around the residential roads of Southall.  Parents can also book independent cycle training skill workshops through the local authority.   cycle training for adults  
  • Scooter and Pedestrian Training - In Year 3 pedestrian skills are covered in a training programme to help pupils develop their road safety knowledge in fully supervised small groups, pupils explore the roads around the school and discuss safe and unsafe places to cross.  Pupils then practise crossing roads safely.  They will also discuss how to identify safer crossing points and explore The Green Cross Code.  Scooter training sessions are held with our Year 1 & 2 pupils to help develop scooting skills and confidence.
  • Big Pedal and Walk to School Initiatives - Each year Tudor participates in the 'Walk to School' and the month long 'Big Pedal' National initiatives to encourage children to actively travel to school.  During this years Big Pedal event we had 93.8% of our children walking, cycling, skate boarding and scootering to school.  We came 18th nationally and in 1^st in Ealing. 
  • Junior Citizen - The Junior Citizenship Scheme (JCS) helps prepare pupils for some of the challenges they might face as young adults when travelling in and around London. The scheme is a half-day event for Year 6 pupils and is run in some London boroughs, including Ealing. The events consist of a carousel of activities with up to 10 different agencies delivering short sessions on topics relating to good citizenship. Pupils complete these tasks in small groups, learning through experience and real-life risk situations that test their ability to make responsible decisions.  
  • Outside Agencies - The school works with the Local Authority and the Police to promote active travel and road safety, including running Dr Bike sessions, bike maintenance and safety checks are offered to all Tudor children and staff for free.
  • Public Transport - Wherever possible, the school uses public transport for school trips or we walk if it is a very local trip

‘Schools Streets’ Scheme was launched in March 2023 and has been successful, the parents and children are encourage to use Tudor Road because of the increased safety, making the journey to and from school a pleasant one, and not to feel worried with the cars driving down and reversing into walls an causing accidents.

Parents and carers are reminded that they are responsible for the safety of their child on the journey to and from school.

Tudor Primary School would like to thank you in advance for supporting our travel policy. If you have any ideas on how to promote, or provide new opportunities for active travel please get in touch. Additionally, we would be interested to hear your ideas of how to improve safety or air quality around Tudor Primary School. 

Please complete the google form if you have any concerns and or ideas on promoting active travel;  https://forms.gle/qSrCJoqZcQwspSnr8