Haddenham St Mary’s School Travel Plan

Here at St Mary’s we have an active School Travel Plan team made up of parents and governors that are led by Mrs Richardson.

The Travel Plan Team aims to:

Our team this year is:

Mrs Richardson – STP lead

Mrs Janet Sharp – STP governor

Mrs Katherine Eccles – parent and Footsteps co-ordinator

Miss Gemma Crane – parent

Mrs Natasha Wilden – parent

The team plan events and initiatives to encourage and support safe and sustainable travel to school such as walking and cycling. Last year we were awarded with GOLD Status as part of the Modeshift STARS (Sustainable Travel Accreditation and Recognition for Schools) national schools awards scheme. We meet on a regular basis to discuss ideas and plan events. The team also collaborates with HCJS and HCIS to ensure that all the Haddenham schools are working together and delivering the same message about options for sustainable travel.

Here are some of the ways that we encourage sustainable travel to HSM:

Fitness Fridays and Walk to school events

Fitness Fridays are walk to school events on a monthly from the Church of the Good Shepherd. The walk generally leaves at 8.40am and allows parents and children to take part in a regular walk to school event. Parents are then invited into school once a month for refreshments and a chat in the school hall.

The School Travel Plan takes part in national walk to school weeks in October and May. We also encourage participation in the Bike to School month in June.

Please see the school newsletter and calendar for details of all the planned events and the STP newsletters.

Park and Stride

Please see the map below for the Park and Stride area – if you park and then walk to school (within the 10 minute exclusion zone) then this counts! We do appreciate that a lot of children live outside Haddenham and do have to come in the car, so this initiative allows everyone to be involved. Please use the areas allocated and the local pub car parks.

Going for Gold

All the children in school have the opportunity to take part in the Bucks CC ‘Going for Gold’ scheme. Every time a child walks, walks and strides, scoots or cycles (from outside the park and stride zone) to/from school they can get a stamp on their passport. It is a really worthwhile scheme and you can benefit from incentives such as free swimming or free entry to Zoomania (to mention a few of the rewards on offer). 40 stamps is a completed card and this can be handed into the school office to receive your free voucher and a new passport. Once the children have completed the bronze, silver and gold passports then they receive a special gold badge in assembly.

Cycle Permits

We encourage children to cycle and scoot to school as often as they can. Please ask in the school office if you would like your child to have a bicycle permit. This entitles them to park their bicycle or scooter in the covered bike area.

Footsteps

When children are in year 1 and Year 2 they are offered the chance to take part in the Footsteps training programme. Footsteps is a practical pedestrian training scheme for young children, which develops awareness of roads and helps them live safely with traffic. Children are taken into the local area with a trained tutor to observe the traffic and discuss road safety. It is a very worthwhile scheme – if you are interested in becoming a tutor then please speak to Mrs Richardson or one of the STP team.

We are always looking for new ideas and more members – please contact Mrs Richardson or any of the team if you would like to support us.

Many thanks
The School Travel Plan Team.