Schools across Barnet are celebrating this week, having been named as ‘schools of excellence’ by Transport for London (TfL). Six schools were commended at the annual Top Schools STARS (School Travel: Active, Responsible and Safe) awards which were held on Wednesday 3 November. Awarded in a range of categories, the ‘school of excellence’ commendations celebrate schools’ outstanding achievements in encouraging safe and sustainable travel. They recognise achievements in reducing car use, increasing walking and cycling and using public transport more responsibly
The schools were selected from thousands of other schools from across London and received their awards at a ceremony at City Hall in London on 3 November 2015. The six winning Barnet schools were:
• Oakleigh School (a special educational needs school) was named ‘school travel plan champion of the year’,
• Courtland Primary School and Mill Hill County High School were both awarded ‘school of excellence’ for its work in promoting the use of public transport,
• Wren Academy was named a ‘school of excellence’ in the ‘pupil-led’ category for the work of its youth travel ambassadors in promoting safer and active travel to school to their peers,
• Parkfield School is a ‘school of excellence’ for its road safety projects,
• Moss Hall Infants School is a ‘school of excellence’ for promoting scooting to school.
The STARS awards are applied for through developing and implementing a school travel plan (STP), a document created by the school that identifies how everyone travels to school, their barriers to travelling more sustainably and an action plan of initiatives and activities to be implemented. Staff from Re, working with Barnet Council, support the schools with their STPs and STARS applications and nominated the six schools for their awards.
Leon Daniels, managing director of TfL Surface Transport, said: “What children learn now will have a lasting effect on the future of our environment and that’s why we want to encourage more schools to sign up and emulate the inspirational work of STARS top performing schools.”
Alun Parfitt, operations director at Re, said: “The competition for these awards is phenomenal – so it’s fantastic that so many schools in the borough have been commended. TfL has been rightly impressed by the work being done by the schools, Barnet Council and Re to minimise the number of cars on the school run every morning and to promote healthy and sustainable living.”
The STARS scheme has three levels – bronze, silver and gold – and the more initiatives a school has and the greater the changes in behaviour, the higher accreditation they achieve.
This year in Barnet, 48 schools achieved a bronze STARS level, 17 got silver and 23 achieved gold. Since the introduction of school travel plans in Barnet there has been a reduction in travelling to school by car by approximately 10%.