Walking

Children who walk regularly are less at risk from heart disease, stroke, diabetes and osteoporosis when they are older. Yet 4 out of 10 boys and 6 out of 10 girls are active for less than an hour per day.

The decline in walking to school has coincided with a rise in childhood obesity, with the proportion of overweight children increasing by 7 per cent between 1996 and 2001.

Making moderate exercise an integral part of a child's day, through a walk to and from school, is an excellent way to guard against excess weight and improve general health.

Walking is already popular with the majority of pupils who live close to their schools, but should be encouraged in others as a key means of improving health and easing congestion.

Local transport and education authorities need to work together with schools to develop strategies that combine 'hard' and 'soft' measures. These can go some way to convincing pupils and parents that walking can be fun and safe.

Hard measures include engineering works on and off the highway such as traffic calming and the creation of safer routes. Soft measures include crossing patrols, walking buses and on- and off-road training to improve road skills and confidence.

Traffic Calming

Traffic calming measures can make walking safer.

Some local authorities have introduced 20 mph zones around schools, but it's important to remember that investment is needed in engineering measures to ensure that the zones are self-enforcing.

Safer Routes

Local transport authorities should regularly review the pedestrian routes that children use to travel to school and improve them as needed. By making these routes safer and more attractive children and their parents can be encouraged to walk to school, rather than drive.

School infrastrcutre and policies

Safer routes on their own are not always enough to encourage significantly more children to walk to school. Children who walk to school may need lockers, changing facilities and possibly showers, which the school may choose to provide for them.

Schools can also consider the practicality of any uniform policy on those children who may wish to walk. Schools should recognise that items such as backpacks and trainers can support a healthy lifestyle and are sound additions to a good uniform policy.

School crossing patrols

School crossing patrols can encourage walking to school, reassuring parents and complementing engineering measures.

Walking buses

Until children reach the age where their parents are happy for them to travel independently, there is often time pressure on parents associated with the school run.

Although the car may not always be the quickest option for the journey to school, some parents may have to get to work, or have children at more than one school. This may make it impractical for them to walk with their child every day.

To help address this, some schools have introduced 'walking buses'. Children are collected from along a pre-arranged route at an agreed time and escorted to school by volunteers who have been vetted as suitable to work with children. If children live too far from the school to walk all the way, their parents can drop them off at a convenient meeting point, and they are then escorted to school as part of a group.

Training

According to government statistics pedestrian casualty rates are particularly high among 11 to 12 year old boys. This may be partly because they do not walk regularly to primary school and learn 'street skills' before going to secondary school independently. It is essential that children not only receive the right training, but that they are encouraged to walk from an early age and so develop the skills they need to be safe pedestrians.

Schools are well placed to encourage the development of road safety skills. Road safety is included in the framework for personal, social and health education (PSHE) at Key Stages 1 and 2, and at Key Stage 3 children should be taught to 'recognise and manage risk and make safer choices about healthy lifestyles, different environments and travel'.

Research has shown that the best way for younger children to develop safe pedestrian skills is thourhg practical roadside training. These skills can be developed and built on within the curriculum.

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