Active Travel Campaign

Posted at 8:48 am on 8th June, 2022

YTA Dragon's Den Success

On Friday 13th May, Wellacre’s team of Youth Travel Ambassadors (YTA) made their way to The Friends’ Meeting House in Manchester to make an exciting Dragon’s Den pitch.

  

As part of the YTA’s co-curricular programme, the students have been working on an Active Travel campaign and the event was an opportunity to present their idea to a team of judges from Transport for Greater Manchester, Living Streets, Modeshift and Greater Sports.

Wellacre joined six other schools from across Greater Manchester to pitch to secure £500 for their schools to fund the campaigns they had each created to encourage more students, staff and parents to choose active travel, instead of the car.

  

Our YTA gave a fantastic pitch, summarising their survey findings, outlining the issues faced by Wellacre with regards congestion and safety at the beginning and the end of the school day, and presented their solutions to the judges, in a clear and confident manner.  

The judges were very impressed with the way Wellacre’s Ambassadors analysed the data collected and the science behind air pollution, identified Wellacre’s main issues and the solutions they proposed to increase active travel.  

The whole team of Year 7 students were outstanding - Laurence, Luke, Oscar, Cody, MacKenzie, Oliver, Cale, Jaden, and Lucas. 

MacKenzie said “It was quite overwhelming, but it felt great once we had spoken” and Luke added: ‘It was nerve racking!”

Mrs Eagling, YTA Lead and Assistant Leader of Mathematics said:

“The boys were brilliant and an absolute credit to the school.  They spoke clearly and passionately about the issues of congestion and pollution and although they were nervous, the judges were really impressed with their presentation skills and their teamwork.

“All their hard work and a great performance paid off as the judges awarded Wellacre’s Ambassadors the prize of £500, which will fund their campaign in school.”

We would like to thank Kelly Leat, Active Travel Officer at TfGM for this opportunity and working alongside the ambassadors.  They are all looking forward to launching their Active Travel campaign in school in September.

Principal Mrs Sharrock said:

“Well done boys! I know how hard you have worked on your Dragon’s Den pitch and I am delighted with your prize fund.  Thank you to Mrs Eagling for all her tremendous support.”