Walk to School Week 9th - 13th October
St Giles CofE Primary School
Nurture – Inspire – Respect – Achieve
Bringing out the best in every child
Walk to School Week (9th – 13th October 2023) and a few safety reminders.
Dear Parents and Carers,
Next week the whole school will be taking part in a “Walk to School” week. Walking to school is good for both the children and the environment. It has been proven that children who do some form of exercise, especially a walk before school, do better in class because they arrive refreshed, fit, and ready to learn. The school run can also contribute to air pollution and carbon emissions. More importantly, in our given setting, walking to school is the best option, given our narrow road and very limited parking. For those of you who live outside of the village and therefore have to drive to school, we are encouraging you to “park and stride” instead, as many of you do already. Parking is available by the rec and also on the road, by the Green Man.
During the week, we will be undertaking several activities including; talking to children about road safety, having a buddies road safety activity, creating speed awareness signs to display around the village, thinking about the benefits of walking to school and keeping a tally to see just how many of our children walk, scoot or cycle to school. We will even be linking our current Worship theme of “Wisdom” to road safety in our Collective Worship.
With this focus on how we get to school, this is the ideal time to remind you about driving down Church Lane. Despite several messages last year from Mrs Douch, we are still having issues with some parents driving down the road inconsiderately. The Parish Council has recently had a speed awareness sign posted along Church Lane, with the speed limit set deliberately low, to help people driving down the lane to be more considerate of those walking. In the past couple of weeks, we have unfortunately had a couple of incidents of cars driving too fast or not being considerate of children in the road, with a serious accident only narrowly being avoided.
On top of this, the fact also remains that we have limited parking spaces around the school. We would like to give a gentle reminder that parents should not park in the passing place or house access near the school gates or in the turning circle by the gates to the lakes. The area by the gates should be kept clear for large vehicles to turn around and for emergency services to access the track. The layby opposite our drive needs to be clear for similar reasons.
With the evenings getting darker earlier, we can see how it might be tempting to park near the school to collect your children from school and after school activities, but please could we remind parents/carers to park in the village and walk down. We know this takes more time, but it is surely worth it to keep our children safe and healthy and our neighbours happy.
At the same time, please could we give a gentle reminder to parents/carers to reinforce what we are teaching about road safety and ensure that children remain with you on the walk to school, not running off, and that they are aware of the road around them.
Records of a school on the site go back 300 years with the current school building commissioned in 1870 – obviously no cars then! Today we benefit from a beautiful site but very poor access and no parking. Think of the walk as your daily exercise, chat to your child and enjoy the rural surroundings!
Thank you so much for your support in this matter.