Parent Power at Beckenham School

Parent Power at Beckenham School

Beckenham School is a full primary school located at the foot of the Cashmere Hills in Christchurch. It has a roll of around 440 children, drawn both from the nearby slopes of the Cashmere Hills and from the less affluent suburb of Beckenham. In February 2008 two parents of pupils at Beckenham, with a passion for sustainable transport, arranged to meet the Christchurch City Council’s Schools Road Safety Coordinator. They were keen to see their children’s school develop a long term commitment to active travel to school and had come to the Council seeking advice on how to achieve their goal.

During the meeting a method for establishing walking school buses was discussed, the possibility of the school developing a school travel plan was raised, and the forthcoming Feet First Walk to School Week was mentioned. Armed with information about Feet First, a leaflet about the school walking school bus programme (attached) and a generic survey form taken from the New Zealand Transport Agency’s Walking School Bus Coordinator’s Guide, they immediately met with the school’s principal to discuss and promote their ideas.

Their first achievement was to persuade the school to enrol for the Feet First Walk to School Week (which was to happen in less than three weeks time). With the school staff enthusiastically supporting this initiative, 82% of the school roll participated. At the beginning of April a meeting was held of parents interested in participating in the walking school bus programme, and two walking buses were immediately established. Now more parents were embracing the sustainable transport option for school travel. Two months later the school embarked upon developing its own school travel plan, guided by a facilitator contracted by the Christchurch City Council.

Even before their school travel plan is finalised, this school community is bursting with ideas on how to encourage sustainable travel to and from school, including ways of growing the walking school bus programme, a notice board on which out-of-zone families interested in car pooling can make contact with one another, cycling courses for adults to encourage them to cycle with their children to school, and a request for a flyer (which the Christchurch City Council is now developing) for the school to deliver to the neighbourhood to alert residents to be on the look out for walking and cycling school children when exiting their driveways.

While this initiative has been supported by the local council, it arose from the school community itself, which is why so much has been achieved in such a short time.

Further information: TBC, TBC.