Pupils invited to conference on beating the school run

Pupils, teachers, and parents from across Glasgow are being invited to a conference on tackiling the schools run being organised by Sustrans and the Scottish Government on the 10th of March.

There are still places left for the event being held at the GO Business and Conference Centre in Glasgow is free and is one of a number of similar conferences being held across Scotland in an attempt to boost healthier ways of getting to and from school. The conferences are focussed primarily on helping school champions learn more about how they can promote healthy travel within their schools and communities.

The school champions project has already scored a notable success in Inverness where pupils involved in the TravelSmart project are credited with playing a significant part in changing attitudes and behaviour to travel in their local community.

The free training, on offer in Glasgow (and across Scotland during March) is supported by the Scottish Government, is designed to help schools proactively tackle the school run, promote walking and cycling as a healthy and fun way to get to classes, and find out more about creating and implementing a School Travel Plan.
 
Cecilia Oram, Sustrans’ School Travel Project Officer for Scotland, said: “Sustrans has been working with schools throughout Scotland for over 10 years so we have lots of experience in helping make school travel more healthy and environmentally-friendly. 
 
Currently the school run accounts for a fifth of all traffic on the roads every morning and obesity levels in the UK continue to rise with 25% of 11 to 15 year olds being overweight or obese. It is vital that we address these issues by tackling the increasingly car-dependent school run in Scotland and encourage parents, teachers and children to take to two wheels, two feet or use public transport to travel to and from classes.  These free training days will give representatives the knowledge and skills they need to champion green and healthy travel in their schools.”
 
Anyone interested in attending the training day should contact Cecilia Oram on 0131 539 8128 or email Cecilia.oram [at] sustrans.org.uk. Sustrans will also be able to supply funding to cover the cost of a supply teacher for a limited number of schools.