Thread by @Lindsay_Gsy

This is a long thread about a long journey: the story of a school run that went from this↙️… to this↘️. 🧵
#CleanAirDay #SchoolStreet #Guernsey

Starring:
🌟 Two awesome headteachers & dedicated staff team
🌟 Parents & carers
🌟 The wider community
🌟 Cross-departmental govt support
🌟 And, most of all, lots of inspirational kids! 🤩💪

Here’s how I saw it happen, from the perspective of my front row seat.

About nine years ago, I dropped my oldest child off for his first day at St. Martin’s Primary School, but when I went to pick him up at the end of the school day, I was shocked that the playground I’d waved him goodbye from had transformed into a carpark.

Vehicles were bumper to bumper, some with their engines still running: parents had to navigate their way between the rows of cars (a particular challenge for those of us with younger children in tow) and kids struggled to see the adult who’d come to pick them up.

Once children had been bundled between and into cars, traffic would flood the narrow, pavement-less lanes around the school, pushing past the kids trying to walk home and forming fumy queues to get out onto the main roads.

My husband phoned to find out how our son’s first day had gone.

“Oh, fine,” I said, “but I’m calling the headteacher to talk about what happens at pick up time.”

“Do you have to be *that parent* on Day 1?” he asked... but he knew the answer. 🤦‍♂️

The headteacher agreed that the arrangements were depressingly awful, but she had no idea what she could do about these problems she’d inherited. Mornings were bad in other ways, with rogue parking and crazy multi-directional heavy traffic and children having to walk through it.

I asked her if she’d ever heard of a travel plan. She hadn’t, but she was all ears – and when I explained, she said she’d support anything that made it easier, safer and more pleasant for children and their families to get to and from school.

So, here’s a roughly chronological summary version of how the St. Martin’s Primary School (SMPS) travel plan evolved, in tandem with some other factors that together transformed the school run.

🚌 Provision & promotion of free school buses. Historically, SMPS hadn’t had any, but as nearby St. Andrew’s Primary (where my son had started school) was closing, we successfully lobbied the Education Dept and buses were put on. Soon, they had the highest uptake of any primary.

At first, there was nowhere particularly convenient for buses to drop off and pick up the kids. The headteacher persuaded the nearby Community Centre to allow the buses to use their carpark, but that created another problem…

The Edu Dept (in whose care the children were between the bus and the school) were not happy letting students walk down the narrow, two-way lane with no pavement to reach the main school gate.

Voila! A new gate appeared opposite, complete with someone to man the crossing.🙋‍♂️🙌

👩‍👧‍👦 Meanwhile, in the car park that was the playground at pick up time, a gradual reprioritisation of people over vehicles was taking place.

Car engines had to be turned off. A footpath (at first only 1m wide) was painted around the building to create a clearway for people on foot to pass through. In time, the clearway got wide enough for people with buggies and bikes to get through.

More space was made for people.

⌛ Crucially, the cars parked in the playground were kept in for about ten minutes longer, to prioritise the children leaving on foot or by bike and give them a chance to get a good head start before the traffic gave chase. 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

🖌️🙅‍♂️ On the road outside the school gate, yellow lines were introduced by the Traffic & Highways team to prevent problem parking. The Police supported the school’s brilliant site manager to help enforce the new set up effectively. 👮

💋 A Kiss & Drop system was introduced in the mornings, where instead of parking haphazardly in the road to take their children into school, parents could drop them right at the gate where a teacher was waiting to help them out with their bags etc. 🎒👩

👣🚲 Meanwhile (actually very early on in the process) a group of parents had got together to form the Active Travel Team. We introduced walking buses and the island’s first cycle train – children riding to/from school in groups accompanied by adult volunteers.

With community involvement and sponsorship, we developed a brand to raise the profile of active travel, and used it for example on the hi-vis vests we gave out free to kids, staff, parents etc.

🚴‍♀️ By 2016 I was in the States, so I had a front row seat for the initiatives that came from there too… We introduced Bikeability (a step up from Cycle Proficiency) into primary schools, giving children more training at a slightly younger age than before. 🚴‍♂️

In 2018 we ran a very successful (adult) e-bike initiative that kickstarted a major uptake of bike use, followed in 2020 by an e-cargo bike initiative which was particularly popular with parents of young kids. Both are now a very common sight on our school run.

At school, bike/scooter racks (which used to be hidden away right round the back of the building) were stationed prominently outside every door. These days, they’re all full to bursting – even for the very youngest year group!

📢 SMPS threw itself into UNICEF’s Rights Respecting Schools Programme and was the first school in the Bailiwick to achieve the silver and then gold award. Part of that was the children using their own voice to campaign for their rights – the real game changer.

🌍 One of their keynote campaigns was focused on their right to a clean and safe environment and a healthy and active lifestyle – and they set their sights on taking down the barriers stopping them from walking, scooting and cycling to school. Boy, were they effective.

📊 The children did a brilliant job of analysing and evidencing the problems (essentially too much traffic coming to and parking on the school premises, making it feel unsafe and unhealthy) and coming up with some innovative solutions.

First and foremost, they wanted their playground back – but they knew they’d need to find alternative places for adults to park instead. Just as their plan was coming together, Covid struck, and the island went into lockdown.

😷 Strict social distancing measures were still in place when schools first started opening up again, but it was clear that social distancing would be impossible at picking up time with the playground filled with cars. They were redirected to the school playing field instead.

This created much-needed space in the playground, but it still attracted high volumes of traffic into the narrow lanes around school – plus the field would turn to mud in winter. As soon as they got the chance, the children put their plan into action...

💌 They wrote very sweetly to a number of nearby premises, including hotels, offices, shops, a visitor attraction, a football club and a church, and asked for the use of a few parking spaces for a half-hour window at the end of each school day. Nearly all agreed.

They called these sites active travel hubs, and explained to parents that, while they wouldn’t be able to park at school anymore, they would be able to park at any of these convenient locations nearby.

📡 They made leaflets, videos and posters to communicate what they were doing and why to the school community and the wider neighbourhood as well. With the support of Traffic & Highway Services and the Health Improvement Commission, they launched their plan.

The active travel hubs worked well. The total number of car journeys also reduced, and parents found (to their surprise) that they were actually getting to after school activities more quickly, as they didn’t get stuck in the playground or long queues of traffic in the lanes. 👍

👣 Next, the children successfully lobbied for a new footpath to be created to give them a safer walking route to avoid a busy junction to get to and from one of the active travel hubs on States land.

By now, mornings (with cars still driving to the school gate) felt less safe than the afternoons, so they campaigned to move the Kiss & Drop to the Community Centre and – the piece de resistance – simultaneously trial a School Street, both mornings and afternoons.

🚪 After another exemplary exercise in positive engagement and good communication, the children persuaded Traffic & Highways to give it a chance and knocked on doors to explain the plan to those living in the wider area. The community were mostly very supportive.

And so, after a successful pilot, the Bailiwick’s first School Street is up and running! Weaving my way through the happy masses of children walking and wheeling down the lane, it couldn’t feel more different to my experience nine years ago.

My youngest child will start at the school in September, and I won’t have to be *that parent* this time…

Huge thanks to all those who made it happen, especially headteachers Cate Mason followed by Claire Giles, and the children of St. Martin’s Primary themselves. 💪👏😍
📸: Bailiwick Express & Guernsey Press