Burley Woodhead pupils to take on Big Walk and Wheel challenge

Between Monday, March 20 and Friday, March 31, the children are going to be taking part in the Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel.

Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel is the UK’s largest walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling challenge. It inspires pupils to make active journeys to school, improve air quality in their neighbourhood and discover how these changes benefit their world.

On each day of the challenge schools compete to see who can record the greatest number of pupils walking, using a wheelchair, scooting or cycling to school.

A school’s best five days will determine their final position and schools at the top of their leaderboards will receive an exclusive Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel certificate.

Deputy Headteacher Andrew Wilkinson said: “Our ‘Healthy Me’ theme for spring lends itself perfectly to the Big Walk and Wheel. Staying active is a key driver of everyone's physical and emotional wellbeing. Walking or wheeling your way to school is a great way to build physical activity into children’s daily routine.

"It helps them arrive at school more relaxed and alert, and is great for their mental wellbeing too. Hopefully, the challenge will also have a positive impact on congestion and air quality in the local community, as more active school journeys should reduce the number of vehicles on the road.”

Mr Wilkinson added: “In previous years we have been very successful in the competitive element of the challenge. In 2021, we achieved a whopping 90 per cent active journeys to school over the course of the challenge - that equated to 3,560 journeys, placing us 68th in the entire country in the nationwide competition.

"The individual classes have also enjoyed competing against one another to build the school average. It has also provided us with some live data to analyse through our maths lessons.

"If you see more pedestrians, bicycles and scooters on the school run in the final two weeks of March, you will know why."