Sustrans Cymru have been successfully awarded the contract to deliver Welsh Government’s Active Journeys programme. With this new contract in place, Sustrans Cymru can continue its work supporting children and young people across Wales to travel sustainably and actively.
Children and young people in schools across Wales are learning about the benefits of active travel. Credit: Jonathan Bewley.
Sustrans Cymru has been working with Welsh Government, for almost ten years, to deliver interventions to schools across Wales.
The Active Journeys programme has helped pupils, teachers, parents and guardians to become more active on their journeys to school.
The aim of the Active Journeys programme is simple: it's a behaviour change programme that's designed to get the whole school community walking, wheeling, scooting or cycling to school, reducing car use and congestion around the school gates at pick and drop off times.
Funded by Welsh Government, the project works with schools across Wales, including primary schools, secondaries and colleges.
The programme's activities are designed with accessibility in mind, supporting pupils from pupil referral units and additional learning needs schools to take part, with resources that are aligned to the latest Welsh curriculum.
A plan for more fun on the school run
The new Active Journeys programme has ambitious targets to get more people walking and wheeling, scooting and cycling to school.
By engaging more school and community champions, training teachers, parents and carers about the wider benefits of walking, wheeling or cycling to school, our Active Journeys officers are empowering more people to choose to leave the car at home.
Across Wales, we've seen parents in Active Journeys schools take the lead in organising their own walking and cycling buses, bringing the fun to the school run and the community together.
Thanks to evaluation undertaken by Sustrans' Research and Monitoring Unit, there's evidence that shows the tangible impact of the programme.
More pupils are travelling actively as a result of the Active Journeys programme, with active travel as the usual school travel mode increasing by 12% in the Active Journeys schools.
Fewer pupils are being driven to school too, with car use as the usual travel mode decreasing by 14.7%.
Sustrans' Active Journeys officers deliver basic bike maintenance skills to pupils in Llangollen. Credit: Geraint Thomas.
Empowering our future generations through education
Sustrans Cymru's Active Journeys officers work in partnership with schools who are signed up to the Active Journeys programme, delivering a variety of activities that help support and encourage school communities to travel actively.
Some of these include led walks, route safety audits, bike maintenance and cycling skills, mapping exercises, air pollution monitoring studies and the ever-popular scooter skills sessions.
This is often a hit with children and parents alike, with our officers delivering parent-child sessions too.
Schools can choose what session work best for their pupils.
Active Journeys officers are there to support pupil-led initiatives too, such as the #AndSheCycles campaign that supports teenage girls to continue travelling actively when they transition to secondary schools.
During the 2023-24 project year, our Active Journeys officers delivered over 330 activities in 68 schools all over the country.
Over the programme's last 4-year period, over 2,000 activities were delivered in 182 schools across Wales.
"We're excited for the next phase of the Active Journeys project," said Aoife Blight, Programme Manager at Sustrans Cymru.
"Our Active Journeys officers are already delivering exciting and engaging walking, scooting, and cycling sessions with children, young people and adults across Wales."
"This important work supports the next generation of ethically minded citizens to choose how they travel, and to take care of their communities."
These activities aim to directly empower our children and young people so that they're more confident and that they have a chance to develop real, practical skills.
Sustrans Cymru's Active Journeys officers, sometimes along with our fantastic volunteers, work with schools to identify where they need the most help - often leading to remarkable outcomes.
Bike buses have become a really popular way of encouraging children, young people and their adults to travel actively to school. Credit: Thomas Hughes.
The importance of active travel in the school community
Some of the key objectives of the Active Journeys programme include giving school communities the tools and skills to promote and support active travel within their school and wider community.
Through basic maintenance skills sessions, activities that encourage awareness of local environments, and classroom resources that engage pupils, the Active Journeys programme gives students across Wales a direct way of learning, developing, and engaging in healthier travel practices.
Many of these activities are also available for teachers and school champions from the wider school community, such as parents, carers and school governors.
Active Journeys officers look to connect school champions during networking and training events.
This creates the opportunity for a network of school clusters, i.e. primary schools that feed into local secondary schools, with the same focus on supporting pupils to travel actively.
This is especially important as pupils gain more independence, travelling to secondary school.
By engaging with this wider group, the Active Journeys programme creates a sustainable environment for schools to continue to encourage walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling into the future.
The Active Journeys programme is about teaching children, young people and their adults about sustainable ways to move around their community.
Another incentive to keep in mind is the aspiration of becoming an Active Travel School.
Active Journeys schools are automatically added to the Active Travel School Award competition.
This is a fun way to encourage schools to keep their communities moving.
Schools can complete a series of tasks to prove their Active Travel School credentials and be awarded with Bronze, Silver or Gold level awards.
Our Active Journeys officers support schools to achieve these goals.
Active Journeys officers also support school champions to write Active Travel School Plans.
These are plans to understand the schools' infrastructure needs, as well as any behaviour change needs.
From these, local authorities and schools can work together to make the routes to schools safer for everyone.
These are an essential part of applying for Safe Routes in Communities (SRiC) funding. They are also useful data for informing Active Travel Fund bids.
The Active Journeys team at Sustrans Cymru has good relationships with local authority officers across Wales, often resulting in positive changes and innovations for schools.
For example, Active Journeys officers are supporting school street trials outside Active Journeys schools in Newport, Denbighshire and the Vale of Glamorgan, creating safe, fun spaces for children to walk, wheel, scoot and cycle to school.
For any schools that are interested in joining the Active Journeys programme, more information can be found on the project webpage.
Alternatively, our schools can be contacted for further information via e-mail, and our team will be happy to discuss how we can best support you.
