PUPILS and staff go on their bikes and headed to school as part of Cycle to School Week.
Ninestiles, an Academy joined the national initiative, which ran from September 23 to 27, aims to encourage young people to jump on their bikes and celebrate the benefits of getting to school this way.
Participants are encouraged to swap one car journey for cycling, cycle to school every day, cycle with their family or discover somewhere new on a cycle ride.
One of the programme’s aims to ensure that all children should be able to ride a bike by the time they leave school and so Ninestiles cascade Bikeabilty to a large cohort every year to aid in this work.
The school prioritises Special Educational Needs and Disability learners and they are in the first cohort due to undertake training this term. Thanks to this commitment Bikeability have gifted the school some small balance bikes which learners helped to assemble.
Ninestiles Travel Ambassadors have also been campaigning for learners to use active travel to get to school.
Over the last year the school has improved their bike storage facilities and seen about a 30 per cent increase in the number of learners riding to the academy.
They are also surveying staff members and learners at the moment to try and ascertain what they can do to boost this number further.
Alex Hughes, headteacher at Ninestiles, an Academy said: “It’s great that we’ve seen an increase in those choosing to cycle to school every day thanks to the work of our Travel Ambassadors and we also have a very active staffing body, many of whom choose to beat the traffic and ride in daily.
“We will continue to support others to complete the training needed to feel safe and confident cycling to school.”
