Families in Scarborough are preparing to lace up their walking boots this Thursday for a special event aimed at improving health and protecting the environment
Northstead School has announced it will be hosting a 'Park and Stride' event on Thursday, 29th January, as part of its ongoing commitment to active travel,.
The school is the first in Scarborough to participate in the WOW (Walk to school) challenge, a year-long initiative established by the charity Living Streets. This scheme encourages pupils to travel actively to school at least once a week to promote fitness and reduce local traffic. According to the charity, a Park and Stride is a simple solution for families who live too far away to walk the entire distance; by parking a ten-minute walk from the school gates and completing the journey on foot, families can still enjoy the benefits of physical activity while reducing congestion and road danger.
Sam Dyson, a Year 3 Teacher and Sustainability Lead at the school, explained the motivations behind the initiative:
"As part of our school's ambition to reduce carbon emissions and congestion at the gates, we are encouraging children to actively travel to school.
We have joined forces with a charity called the living street and we are challenging the children to walk at least once a week, if not more, or cycle or scoot to school so that they can just enjoy the fresh air, be more active, be healthy, and say reduce carbon emissions and congestion at the gates. That would be a really good thing for the school."
The event this Thursday will begin at 8:00 am at the Northstead Upper Car Park, located at the site of the old indoor swimming pool. Participants will have the opportunity to meet the Living Streets mascot, 'Strider', before setting off together towards the school at 8:15 am,.
The school has worked closely with the local council to facilitate this, ensuring parents have a designated space to park away from the immediate school vicinity. Sam Dyson noted that the pupils have embraced the challenge with enthusiasm, particularly the reward system associated with the programme:
"They're loving it because we have a tracker. So, they get to come in on a morning and they tell everybody how they have got to school that day. And if they are managing to do it at least four times in the month, they get a little badge which have been designed by other children across the country, they've taken part.
The council have said, we're allowed to use the Northstead Upper car park where the old swimming pool was, and parents are invited to park there and walk up to school, and it's just it is a 10-minute walk.
We do encourage them to park at least 10 minutes away and take that 10 minutes to just slow down. It's so calming. You can tell when children have walked into school because they're just calm and ready to learn, which is what we want."
By encouraging these small changes in the daily routine, Northstead School aims to foster a calmer, healthier community environment while tackling the broader issues of carbon emissions and gate-side traffic,. Families are encouraged to join the walk, enjoy the fresh air, and help their children earn their next WOW badge.
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