The Big Pedal

Posted at 2:19 pm on 17th April, 2019

Wellacre joins cycling, walking and scooting challenge

Wellacre invited students and staff to join in The Big Pedal 2019 in last the last week of the spring term – the UK’s largest cycling, walking and scooting challenge for schools.

Organised by the walking and cycling charity Sustrans, the competition ran for two weeks and invited schools to participate for 1 and 5-day challenges from Monday 25 March to Friday 5 April.  

Teacher of Maths, Mrs Eagling, was The Big Pedal coordinator for Wellacre and encouraged students and staff to travel by bike, foot or scooter for their journey to and from school.

During the challenge participating primary and secondary schools competed with one another to make the most journeys by bike, foot or scooter.

At the end of Wellacre 5 day challenge, we finished 12th nationally for secondary schools with an average of 48% of students cycling or walking.  Approximately 35% of pupils use public transport.

Overall, almost 2,300 schools took part and 744,089 pupils taking part nationally.  The grand total of an amazing 2 million journeys were made throughout the two weeks, which is the equivalent of 3,492 kg of nitrogen oxide saved!

Mrs Eagling said:

“A huge proportion of our school already walk and cycle to school.  By taking part in The Big Pedal and encouraging even more to walk, scoot or cycle to school, it was satisfying to record this and also to demonstrate what a difference we can make to our health and the environment if we use human power.”