Boost your walking bus
There are lots of ways to boost interest in your walking bus and ensure it is viewed as the coolest way to travel to school.
Here is our Top Tip list but if you have any ideas please let us know so we can pass on your tips to other parents. Contact your Project Officer through the contact section of this website.
Top tips from award winning walking buses
Mailshot every parent in the school
Kent and Medway Charity Team can, in conjunction with the school, write to every parent at a school to encourage more parents to join your scheme.
We will provide letterheads, window envelopes, text for the letter and Hop on Board newsletters to go in the mailing. Due to data protection constraints, the school has to do the mail merge to named parents. If possible, the school will fold and stuff envelopes; if not, they can be sent back to us and we will do it and send them back to the school for distribution in the children's book bags.
Walk on Wednesday or Walk Once a Week
It is worth organising a Walk on Wednesday scheme where everyone is encouraged to walk to school for one day, perhaps for a term or ideally for a week. The partnership of the Kent and Medway Charity Team, Kent County Council and Medway Council has established a new WOW package that schools can take up. This is a stand-alone service but dovetails with the walking bus as it will boost the numbers of walkers to a school, who can then join your bus.
School Support
Support for Walking Buses from the school can be instrumental in developing and maintaining Walking Buses. This can be as simple as awarding a merit mark or house point to children for every Walking Bus journey taken, but can take a variety of other forms, for example:
- Presenting certificates in assembly. These can be simple things printed off at school on coloured paper. We can supply artwork.
- Including walking bus information in school newsletters, we can supply ready-made artwork and copy.
Goody bags
Three times a year the charity presents either goody bag items or vouchers of tickets to local leisure attractions to reward children for using their walking bus. This works even better as a promotional tool if the head teacher presents them in assembly.
Green leaf/brown leaf
Green leaf/brown leaf promotes the idea of walking to school and can be used to promote walking buses.
The idea is that the children paint a giant tree with no leaves on a poster, then each child that comes to school in a sustainable way adds a paper or card green leaf to put on the tree, and those that come by car put on a brown leaf.
Ideally the children will create their simple coloured leaf at home each night ready to bring in the next day. That way the children will be able to encourage parents to switch their mode of transport to allow them to walk and hand in a green leaf. The aim obviously is to turn the tree green and experience from schools using green leaf / brown leaf is is very effective at increasing the numbers walking to school.
Golden Boot award
This can compliment the green leaf/brown leaf idea or stand on it's own. The Golden Boot Award is a plinth-mounted trophy, which can be created by the school. It can be used to support the idea of walking to school, for example by presenting it to the class that has the highest proportion of walkers in a given period.
Banner competition
Our walk to school charity can now provide you with a complete package to create a special one-off banner for your school. The package costs £150 and works with you running an illustration competition at school to promote the walking bus or walking to school. Every illustration drawn can then be displayed in the polling centre of this website allowing the public to vote to select the winner.
The top design winner will receive a prize from us and the illustration printed on a special all-weather banner for the school to display at your gates.
Alongside the illustration you can put a walk to school slogan, perhaps created by your school council, as well as your s chool logo. We will also take photo of the child with the banner to use on this website as a news story and also submit it to the Kent Messenger Media Group for them to publish. For information on this get in touch with the charity through the contact section of this website.
Build a bear mascot
The idea is to generate interest in the school by taking the children from the bus to a Build-a-Bear Workshop
www.buildabear.com The children build a bear mascot, which they can take in turns to carry on the Walking Bus. The KM Charity Team can organise a free bear mascot for your scheme.
Diary competition
The children can be encouraged to keep diaries and/or draw pictures of their experiences on the bus. The best can be read out in assembly and an award given to the writer. We will try and source prizes, however it could be something as simple as the PTA or school providing something like a branded school ruler.
Big Breakfast
Ryarsh School, Sevenoaks, held a welcome day where children on the walking bus invited a friend to join them on the walk to school. Naturally they all had to wear tabards and have parental permissions forms completed. The special walk was timed to conclude at the school around 8.20am so all on the walk could attend a breakfast with croissants and toast provided by the school. This type of recruitment event can be very successful.
Certificates for walking bus children
Why not present a certificate to Walking Bus children in a school assembly when they achieve 10, 50 and 100 walks to school using the Walking Bus?