Everyone's Doing It on Ride2School Day!
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Everyone's supporting National Ride2School Day, especially local government. In both 2007 and 2008 local governments had a really important role, promoting the health and fitness of their junior citizens through encouragement for schools to get involved in Ride2School Day.
2008
Thanks again local governments! Your support was magnificent. This year we had 559 schools encouraging students to walk and ride to school. Half those schools have reported their travel data to us and we can confidently assert that 50%, or 57,000 students walked or rode to school on 12 March.
Once again we know that local governments provided serious support to schools. Wyndham City Councouncil offered Bike Ed training to schools. Surf Coast Shire organised a ride in with local police, local bike shops and lots of flashing lights.Booroondara had its own Get2School Cool Challenge on the same day. They had almost 2,500 kids participate, travelling 3620kms sustainably and saving almost 900 kgs of CO2 from being emitted - that's approximately 18,000 black balloons.
We don't know all the stories, so send us stories and photos in to let us know what happened and to gain serious bragging rights.
Very honourable mentions to Greater Geelong with 26 schools participating, to Greater Bendigo with 21 and Mornington Peninsula with 18. Congratulations to Franskton, Kingston, Darebin, Moreland, Whitehorse, Maroondah, Wyndham and Booroondara, all of which had ten or more schools participate.
Of course, we know that not all LGAs have the same number of schools. Did yours have a high proportion of schools participate? Let us know, so we can celebrate your achievement with you.
2007
Click on the map (pdf 566kb) to see how many schools in your local governments participated in Ride2School Day 2007.
Local government has a keen role to play in encouraging young people to adopt healthy and active lifestyles. Because schools are the focus of young people's lives, working with schools makes great sense. Some councils are working directly with schools to improve the pedestrian and bike access around schools, others are ensuring that off road bike paths are completed right up to the school gate, some are providing teacher relief funding to enable teachers to be Bike Ed trained and others are supporting schools which get involved in the Ride2School Program.
The inaugural Ride2School Day on 28 March 2007 was a great opportunity for councils to get involved. The Cities of Frankston, Greater Shepparton and Wyndham contacted schools and encouraged them to register; the City of Yarra contributed $100 to the first ten schools that registered so they could put on a healthy second breakfast for students as they arrived at school and offered two prizes for participation of $250 each; the City of Greater Geelong issued media releases in support of school and community involvement; the City of Whitehorse supplied prizes for a poster competition and the City Moreland, among others, ensured that the Mayor and some Councillors visited schools on the day.
Congratulations also to Monash, Greater Bendigo, Greater Geelong and Darebin which all had more than a dozen local schools participate.
Have a look at the map of Ride2School Day schools sorted according to Local Government Areas. It will show you how many schools in your area participated and provide clues about both where there is a lot of suppressed "kiddie commuter" demand and where schools might need a bit of council help to realise their potential.
Don't know the local government area your school is in? Follow this link to find your local council.
