South Stanley Infant School WOW campaign

Main aims and objectives

The school decided to develop a travel plan to address the issue of traffic congestion on Tyne Road at the beginning and end of the school day.

The working group identified that most pupils live within walking distance of the school. The pupil travel survey carried out in January 2009 revealed that 96 per cent of the children live less than 1km away from school, however many of these children (33 per cent) were travelling to school by car.

The management team at the school felt that, as the school held Healthy School accreditation as well as the Active Mark award, this percentage was unnecessarily high. They also felt that the number of parents using the car on the school journey needed to be reduced as the parked vehicles on Tyne Road at the beginning and end of the day contributed to the worsening traffic congestion.

Walk Once a Week campaign - WOW day 

The school travel planning working group developed a Walk Once a Week campaign. The aim of this was that if parents could initially make a change in their routines for one day a week, then this may encourage them to walk on more days during the school week.

The working group came up with Walk On Wednesdays or WOW for short. Ways of recording the number of pupils participating in the campaign were discussed and the catchy concept of WOWing in your wellies was the imaginative result.

Pupils register their walk to school on a golden wellington boot chart which is displayed in their classrooms. The numbers are totalled up and the class with the most walkers are awarded with the Golden Wellington Boot trophy during the school's weekly celebration assembly each Friday. The working group were also keen for the pupils to be individually awarded for their walk, so a competition to design artwork for a WOW sticker was held. Three winners were chosen and the artwork was made into stickers, which are given to the pupils for walking to school.

Publicising the campaign among parents was another consideration. The working group decided that a banner was the answer, and pupils created some artwork with the help of their deputy head teacher and school travel plan co-ordinator. The artwork was then made into an outdoor vinyl banner which is displayed on the school's fencing on a Tuesday afternoon to remind everyone that the following day is WOW day.

Sam, our Safer, Greener Fitter mascot, launched the campaign during an assembly at the school

The school developed the campaign further with a special Christmas wellington boot, which is awarded to the class with the most walkers during December.