Active Hambrough 2022 - 2023
Active Hambrough 2022-2023
This year we continued to build upon, gently promote and embed long-standing travel/health-related activities. All in all it was another eventful and busy active year with some more “firsts” for Hambrough! Once again the school participated in many initiatives throughout the year, in our endeavour to ensure children stay active, healthy and safe. This year also meant our Gold status needed to be renewed and maintenance of Gold was one of the school's key priorities in our School Development Plan.
Throughout the year, we communicated and promoted our healthy ethos, safe and healthy travel to parents through letters, emails, displays including gate banners in the school, newsletters, information on the school’s website, word of mouth during gate patrols, held healthy events (road safety weeks, walk to school weeks, health fair) and at meetings with new parents at school.
The year kick-started when staff were consulted on active travel at our first Inset day and the SDP for 2022-2023 was shared with all. One of our key priorities highlighted this year was to " Promote active and sustainable travel”. A travel working party – consisting of the Head, Travel Champion and a member of the Governing Body - met and put an action plan together, strategically linking initiatives with healthy travel, healthy schools, PSHE and RRSA global goals. (Our JTA’s later joined this working party)
We started the year with confirming our group of Junior Travel ambassadors (JTAs) for this academic year. Following elections a new group of JTAs were appointed. They were introduced to the school in a whole school assembly on 17/10/22.
One of their first tasks this year was to talk to parents at a scheduled Parent Forum meeting in September (17/11/22) to re-enforce the school’s sustainability /active travel agenda and inform of upcoming competitions and challenges.
JTAs quickly got to work to promote the upcoming Road Safety Week. One of the main activities they were involved in was to run and promote a Banner competition – children were asked to create a poster in their own time. A total of 17 entries were judged to be “winners” and awarded some “goodies” and of these JTAs chose 2 entries (RP & AF) whose designs were later converted onto 2 banner and displayed outside the school during Walk to School Week in May 2023 (Read more newsletter 8)
ACTIVE TRAVEL CHALLENGE (14/11/22 – 18/11/22): In partnership with the Local Authority, the school ran the 5-day Active Travel Bookmark Challenge. Our JTAs were once again on task (with a staff member) and could be found in the playground at the beginning of the day for children to get their bookmarks stamped if they had taken part in the challenge i.e. walked/cycled/scooted to school. Children were encouraged to continue to walk/cycle/scoot to school throughout the period, helping to increase physical activity, reduce congestion and air pollution around the school gates. As part of the challenge, children were even treated to a special active-themed lunch on 16th November.
ROAD SAFETY WEEK: Road Safety Week took place during the week of 14th – 20th November and the whole school participated. This year’s theme was “Safe Roads for All”. Children learnt the importance of safe and healthy journeys during class discussions and as they Walked a Mile in the playground. All in all Road Safety Week was eventful and packed with lots of learning.
The “week’s” activities and the active travel theme was promoted by school letters and newsletters (Read more about Road Safety Week in Newsletters (4 –11/11/23) .
During the week many activities took place such as:
- A virtual launch assembly: the assembly led by the Headteacher taught children about road safety and active travel
- A Hands Up Survey: We undertook our annual hands up survey to gain an analysis on travel to school culture.
- The JTAs ran a Road Safety “Design a poster” competition and invited all pupils in the school to design posters delivering the road safety message. They were inundated with entries and eventually chose some winners whose designs were converted onto a banner displayed outside the school during Walk to School Week May. Congratulations to Rudra Parmar and Aiken Fernandes for their winning entries.
- Walk a Mile – All classes were timetabled throughout the week to walk a mile in the playground. This has now become a regular feature for most classes and takes place as a “norm”, even outside of Road Safety or Walk to School weeks.
- Pedestrian Skills Training – was delivered by class teachers to Year 3 pupils on 15th November. Pupils learnt essential road safety skills to make them safer pedestrians.
- On Wednesday 16th November, we were treated to another of Caroline’s scrumptious themed lunch.
- MTR Talks: Ambassadors from MTR Elizabeth Line came and took Road Safety to another level on the 17th November when they delivered talks to all children in KS1 and KS2 about Rail Safety - all in readiness for when they travel on buses and trains during school trips and outside of school.
- Reception Visits to the Library: As part of the school’s focus on encouraging children to read for pleasure Reception children WALKED to Southall Library. This was their first independent school trip and a great opportunity to explore their environment, learn about being active and being safe on the road.
- Peer Reading: Peer reading was another great activity about teaching children about being safe on the roads whilst being active when Year 6 read stories “Tales on the Road”
- Friendship Walking: Peer walking was another fun activity and formed part of anti-bullying week as well as a fantastic opportunity for older Year 6 children to talk to younger (Year 1) children about how walking benefits us all, being healthy and building bonds and friendships along the way!
CROSS CURRICULUM LINKS
As official adopters of Southall Station we continued with our strong community links and in addition to travelling on the Elizabeth Line during school trips we arranged two separate trips linking them to the History and Music curriculums. In December our choir spread some Christmas spirit and sang their hearts out at the station when they sang Christmas carols galore and on 22nd March Year 5 visited the station to receive talks and a tour of the new station linking their learning to their history topic “The First Railways”.
WALK TO SCHOOL WEEK (15/05/23 – 19/05/23): Our annual Walk to School Week began on 15th May 2023. Once again, the message promoted was a strong one - of being active and healthy. Read Newsletter 8 (23/05/23)
- A launch assembly took place for all children, on Monday 15th generating enthusiasm into being active and walking, cycling or scooting to school.
- Our enthusiastic JTAs ran the LA Active Travel Bookmark Challenge from 15th May till 19th May 2023. JTAs could be found in the playground at the beginning of the day sticking smiley face stickers on children’s bookmarks if they had taken part in the challenge i.e. walked/cycled/scooted to school. Children were encouraged to continue to walk/cycle/scoot to school throughout the period, helping to increase physical activity, reduce congestion and air pollution around the school gates. A positive attitude was noticed in pupils. Aim: To encourage children to walk, cycle scoot to school. Overall class winners – Oak & pink Classes -announced at a celebration assembly and prizes (new pencils awarded to both classes).
- Also on Tuesday 16th, we held a “HAPPY SHOES DAY”. Pupils and staff wore shoes that made them happy and helped them to walk more. A total of £178.20 was raised for the Living Streets charity.
- On Thursday 18th a special walking themed lunch was served and enjoyed by all children.
- An unveiling of the Idling Banner took place on Wednesday 18th and the banner was put up outside the school garden gates.
- On Wednesday 17th a Banner unveiling event took place when Winners from Road Safety Week (Winners: Rudra Parmar and Aiken Fernandes ) unveiled their banner promoting Road Safety.
- On Friday 19th we ran an Air Quality Day when everyone wore Green clothes to school to shout out about to promote clean air and reduce pollution. This tied this in with the Trees for Cities scheme that all KS2 children were involved in during the Spring term
- Friday 19th was especially exciting because we had a surprise visit from Terri the Tiger who came to spread the message about active/sustainable travel.
- In addition, as always, we continued to walk a mile in the playground as scheduled in our timetable.
Following the week (but still part of the Walk to School Week) there was another very popular event held:
- On Wednesday 21st June Children enjoyed a Mountain Bike Show and were entertained with lots of biking stunts but learnt lots of cycling safety tips along the way.
CYCLING (BIKEABILITY COURSES): Once again, this year, the school continued with its well-established programme of cycling proficiency for KS2. The sessions were delivered by cycleinstructor.com to children in Year 5. The programme aims to develop children's cycling skills. The programme is always well received by children and parents. In 2023, lessons were held for Y5 from 20th to 24th March 2023The programme is always well received by children and parents. 25 children took part – all 25 passed at level 1 and 16 passed at level 2.
We saw too an increased number of staff cycling into school and using our newly installed staff bike shelter! All members of staff are encouraged to make use of the cycle to work scheme. One member of staff applied for the LA scheme
AUDITS AND CONSULTATIONS: The JTA’s have had an exceptionally busy year this year and have carried out a couple of consultations and audits. They wrote to the community (and hand-delivered the letters to a few streets adjacent to the school) to inform of the work they do in an attempt to engage community support to reduce environmental pollution and spread the word about active travel. The JTAs were involved carrying out an audit of scooter and bike storages in the school after noticing a shortage during walk to school week. The audit showed that indeed there is a shortage of scooter shortage! The JTAs then wrote to the Headteacher and we are pleased to note that approval has been given to buy and install an extra scooter pod in the playground.
We ended the year by submitting all our travel stories to the local authority for re-accreaditation in June 2022 and in early September of 2023 were delighted to hear that our GOLD status was re-affirmed. The school was once again awarded “Gold status” for all it’s travel initiatives
Active Hambrough 2021-2022
After an unsettled couple of years following the Covid pandemic, we strived to build upon, gently promote and embed long-standing travel/health-related activities throughout the year.
Throughout the year, we communicated and promoted our healthy ethos, safe and healthy travel to parents through letters, emails, displays including gate banners in the school, newsletters, information on the school’s website, word of mouth during gate patrols, held healthy events (road safety weeks, walk to school weeks, health fair) and at meetings with new parents at school.
We started the year with confirming our group of Junior Travel ambassadors (JTAs) for this academic year. A total of ten children across Years 4,5 and 6 had been appointed at the end of the last academic year (June 2021) and attended some valuable workshops in July 2021, run by members of the LA Travel Team to aid their work. One of their first tasks this year was to talk to parents at a scheduled Parent Forum meeting in September (24/09/21) to re-enforce the school’s sustainability /active travel agenda and inform of upcoming competitions and challenges. At the end of the previous year, JTAs had also set a competition for pupils to take part in during the summer vacation – and at the start of this academic year they began the laborious task of sifting through and judging the entries. Of all the entries, they picked three winners and presented them with some fabulous prizes! (Read more in Newsletter no 2 (01/10/21)
ACTIVE TRAVEL CHALLENGE (08/10/21 – 21/10/21): In partnership with the Local Authority, the school ran the Active Travel Bookmark Challenge. Our JTAs were once again on task (with a staff member) and could be found in the playground at the beginning of the day for children to get their bookmarks stamped if they had taken part in the challenge i.e. walked/cycled/scooted to school. Children were encouraged to continue to walk/cycle/scoot to school throughout the period, helping to increase physical activity, reduce congestion and air pollution around the school gates. As part of the challenge, children were even treated to a special active-themed lunch on 21st October 2021.
MTR Elizabeth Line Christmas card Competition 2021: Once again this year we entered an Xmas Card competition run by MTR Elizabeth Line to promote rail travel and rail safety together with a Christmas theme. Templates were sent home and the competition was advertised via the whole-school DB Primary page. Although there were no Hambrough winners announced by MTR on this occasion, children had fun participating nonetheless.
ROAD SAFETY WEEK: Road Safety Week took place during the week of 15th – 21st November and the whole school participated. This year’s theme was “Be Bright Be seen”. Children learnt the importance of safe and healthy journeys during class discussions and as they Walked a Mile in the playground. All in all Road Safety Week was eventful and packed with learning.
The “week’s” activities and the active travel theme was promoted by school letters and newsletters (Read more about Road Safety Week in Newsletters (4 – 05/11/21 ; 5 - 26/11/21 & 6 – 15/12/21) .
- On Friday 12th November we took part in an Ealing school wide Giant Walk to School BUS, showing our commitment against the climate crisis and commitment to increase active and sustainable travel to and from school. All children were encouraged to walk, scoot, or cycle all or part of their journey to school. An Active Tree was “planted” and centrally displayed in the school foyer. Children coloured or cut out green leaves if they had travelled actively, orange leaves if they had come partly by car or public transport and red leaves if they had come by car alone. JTAs tirelessly collected leaves from the classes and displayed these on the tree and as you can see the tree was overwhelmingly a green leaved one! Walking, scooting, cycling helps children stay healthy, helps reduce pollution and parking problems around school. (Read more in our newsletter number 6 – 26/11/21)
During the week many activities took place such as:
- A virtual launch assembly: the assembly led by the Headteacher taught children about road safety and active travel
- A Hands Up Survey: On 12/11/21, we undertook our annual hands up survey to gain an analysis on travel to school culture.
- The JTAs ran a Road Safety “Design a poster” competition and invited all pupils in the school to design posters delivering the road safety message. They were inundated with entries and eventually chose some winners whose designs were converted onto a banner displayed outside the school. Congratulations to Jenosha Rameshwaran in Tulip, Manamrit Kaur in Oak, Enrica Magalhaes in Orange and Aiken Fernandes in Amber for their winning entries.
- Winners from the above competition along with the JTAs were treated to spend a memorable day on the Santa Express later in the year (2nd December 2021) (Read Newsletter for more 6 15/12/121)
- Walk a Mile – All classes were timetabled throughout the day on the 16th November to walk a mile in the playground. This has now become a regular feature for most classes and takes place as a “norm”, even outside of Road Safety or Walk to School weeks.
- Pedestrian Skills Training – was delivered by class teachers to Year 3 pupils on 17th November
- Go Green for Clean Air Day – was held on the 18th November and children wore green clothes to school and donated £1.00 at the entrance gates – we raised £234.74 which was donated to the Living Streets charity.
- On Thursday 18th November, we were treated to another of Caroline’s scrumptious themed lunch.
- MTR Talks: Ambassadors from MTR Elizabeth Line came and took Road Safety to another level on the 19th November when they delivered talks to all children in KS1 and KS2 about Rail Safety - all in readiness for when they travel on buses and trains during school trips and outside of school.
IDLING PROGRAMME
Officers from Idling Action London as well as from the Council visited us on Monday 28th February to lead a series of workshops in order to teach students in Years 4,5, & 6 about the importance of air quality and arm them with the information they needed to minimise their own exposure to air pollution, as well as engage the school community to take action and persuade drivers to switch off their engines when parked outside schools. The JTAs also had a short training session, to cover key health and safety guidelines and learnt how to talk effectively to others about idling and pollution - they then put the skills learnt into action and actually went out on the roads (escorted by adults) to tackle the issue and talked to drivers educating them about idling! (Read Newsletters nos Newsletters 8 28/01/22 & 10 11/03/22 for more information)
CROSS CURRICULUM LINKS
As official adopters of Southall Station we continued with our strong community links and in addition to travelling on the Elizabeth Line and the Santa Experience we arranged two separate trips linking them to the History and Music curriculums. On 2nd December our choir spread some Christmas spirit and sang their hearts out at the station when they sang christmas carols galore and on 9th March 2022 Year 5 visited the station to receive talks and a tour of the new station linking their learning to their history topic “The First Railways”.
WALK TO SCHOOL WEEK (16/05/21 – 20/05/22): Our annual Walk to School Week began on 16th May 2022. Once again, the message promoted was a strong one - of being active and healthy.
- Our enthusiastic JTAs ran the LA Active Travel Bookmark Challenge from 13th May till 26th May 2022. JTAs could be found in the playground at the beginning of the day sticking smiley face stickers on children’s bookmarks if they had taken part in the challenge i.e. walked/cycled/scooted to school. Children were encouraged to continue to walk/cycle/scoot to school throughout the period, helping to increase physical activity, reduce congestion and air pollution around the school gates. A launch assembly (still virtual) took place for all children, on Monday 16th generating enthusiasm into being active and walking, cycling or scooting to school.
- On Tuesday 17th, we held a “HAPPY SHOES DAY”. Pupils and staff wore shoes that made them happy and helped them to walk more. A total of £252.25 was raised for the Living Streets charity.
- On Thursday 19th a special walking themed lunch was served and enjoyed by all children.
- An unveiling of the Idling Banner took place on Wednesday 18th and the banner was put up outside the school garden gates.
- In addition, as always, we continued to walk a mile in the playground as scheduled in our timetable.
Following the week (but still part of the Walk to School Week) there were a few other events held:
- We held another Go Green for Clean Air Day on Thursday 16th June when we wore green clothes to school to promote clean air and reduce pollution.
- On Thursday 23rd June we joined forces with our Healthy Schools team and held our annual Health Fair and promoted healthy eating and healthy lifestyles including walking and cycling. We pedalled hard to generate energy and made our own smoothies on a smoothie bike, made (and ate) fruit kebabs, sang health related songs and took part in sports and fitness activities to keep ourselves active, thus keeping the school’s good health & well-being ethos at the forefront. (Read more about Walk to School Week in in Newsletter 13 – 23/05/22 and 14 – 29/06/22)
- Children enjoyed a Mountain Bike Show on Tuesday 21st June and were entertained with lots of biking stunts but learnt lots of cycling safety tips along the way.
CYCLING (BIKEABILITY COURSES): Once again, this year, the school continued with its well-established programme of cycling proficiency for KS2. The sessions were delivered by cycleinstructor.com to children in Year 5. The programme aims to develop children's cycling skills. The programme is always well received by children and parents. In 2022, lessons were held for Y5 during 25th April – 29th April.
We saw too an increased number of staff cycling into school and using our newly installed staff bike shelter!
Active Hambrough 2019-2020; 2020-2021
2020/2021:
The year continued with promoting many travel/health-related activities throughout the year but on a compromised and cautious scale in comparison to previous years, due to Covid and another school lockdown in January 2021 which lasted throughout the first-half of the Spring term.
ROAD SAFETY WEEK: Road Safety Week took place during the week of 16th November and the whole school participated. This year’s theme was “No Need to Speed”! Children learnt the importance of safe and healthy journeys during class discussions and as they Walked a Mile in the playground.
The “week” and the active travel was promoted by school letters (Read more about Road Safety Week in Newsletters (5 – 13/11/20 and 6 - 27/11/20) .
During the week, many activities took place, such as:
- A virtual launch assembly: the assembly led by the Headteacher taught children about road safety and active travel
- A Hands Up Survey: We undertook our annual hands up survey to gain an analysis on travel to school culture, on 18/11/20
- Road Safety “Design a poster” competition: a competition was run for all pupils in the school. Well Done to Angel Thomas Lucky from Year 6 for her winning banner design.
- Walk a Mile – All classes were timetable throughout the period to walk a mile in the playground. This has now become a regular feature for most classes and takes place as a “norm”, even outside of Road Safety or Walk to School weeks.
JUNIOR TRAVEL AMBASSADORS: The school appointed a new group of enthusiastic Global Ambassadors (JTAs) in June 2021 and at the close of the academic year, the JTA’s took part in some valuable workshops around the Active Travel and Perfect Parking campaign on 19/07/21, run by members of the Local Authority Travel Team. These workshops equipped the ambassadors to promote sustainable healthy travel next year. Having taken part in these valuable workshops, their first presentation in person scheduled in front of parents in the new academic year (21/22) was to be at parent forum in September 2021 (24/09/21). In readiness for the new year they also ran their first competition – a poster competition (read more – Newsletter 17 – 21/07/21)
MTR Elizabeth Line Christmas card Competition 2020: We entered an Xmas Card competition run by MTR Railway and promote rail travel and rail safety together with a Christmas theme. The competition was advertised in Newsletter 3 09/10/20 and via the whole-school page via DB Primary. Although there were, no Hambrough winners were announced by MTR on this occasion, children had fun participating nonetheless.
GO GREEN FOR CLEAN AIR DAY: On 20th October 2020 we held a Go Green for Clean Air Day and promoted heathy, active and safe travel by wearing green clothes and eating a special themed lunch – with an obvious green menu! (Read more in Newsletters 3 09/10/20 and 4 22/10/20)
STEPPERS CHALLENGE: As official adopters of Southall Station, we were delighted when we were invited by MTR Railway, to take part in this challenge. After a successful bid, Year 4 were chosen by the Senior Management Team to participate and each child was provided with their very own pedometer! From the 8th March untill the 31st March children were busy counting and recording their daily steps – these included to and from school, in the evenings and also at the weekends. We were thrilled to find out that at the end of the challenge, Rohan Dhiman and Naeem Uddin were rewarded a Kindle each for their highest number of steps. Both were presented with their winnng prizes at a special virtual assembly by Ambassadors from MTR Railway on 18th June 2021.
WALK TO SCHOOL WEEK (17/05/21 – 21/05/21): Our annual Walk to School Week began on 17th May 2021. In comparison to previous years, the week was a low-key affair but the message promoted was still a strong one, of being active and healthy.
- After a launch assembly (still virtual) for all children, on Monday 17th an unveiling of the Road Safety Banner Unveiling Event took place at which winner, Angel Thomas Lucky’s winning banner from the Road Safety Competition in October 2020 was unveiled and put up outside the school garden gates.
- On Tuesday 18th, we held a “HAPPY SHOES DAY”. Pupils and staff wore shoes that made them happy and helped them to walk more. A total of £323.35 was raised for the Living Streets charity.
- On Thursday 20th a special walking themed lunch was served and enjoyed by all children.
- Year 3 received a special Pedestrian Skills training on Friday 21st from their teachers, reinforcing the safety and active message. (Read more about Walk to School Week in in Newsletter 15 – 14/05/21 and 16 – 26/05/21)
- In addition, as always, we continued to walk a mile in the playground as scheduled in our timetable.
CYCLING (BIKEABILITY COURSES): Once again, this year, the school continued with our well-established programme of cycling proficiency for KS2. The sessions were delivered by cycleinstructor.com to children in Years 5, & 6. The programme aims to develop children's & staff’s cycling skills. The programme is always well received by children and parents. In 2021, lessons were held for Y5 during 5th July – 8th July and for Year 6 during 12th – 15th July 2021.
With more and more staff cycling into school, we purchased and had installed our long-awaited 6-bike shelter for staff bikes in February 2021 .
2019/2020:
The academic year began with the wonderful news that Hambrough was once again awarded “Gold status” for all it’s travel initiatives. The school appointed a new group of Global Ambassadors (JTAs) who this year were to carry out not only duties related to promoting active travel but also to support the Rights Respecting Global Goals. One of the first tasks for the ambassadors was to attend a JTA Fun Day organised by the Ealing Travel team, in honour of gaining the Gold Award. Through various activities and games they learnt why active travel is important and what to bear in mind when they are presenting assemblies or running competitions and challenges. (Read more in newsletter 3).
This year the school participated in all it’s usual initiatives throughout the autumn term and most of the Spring term, to ensure children stay active, healthy and safe. However, many activities planned for the latter part of the spring term and all of the summer term were cancelled as the school closed due to COVID 19. Listed below are all the ACTIVE TRAVEL related activities that did take place this year.
WORLD CHILDREN’S DAY – 20/11/19: One of our first activities this year was to mark World Children’s Day 2019 and to celebrate the power of children to change the World we did our bit to make sure children in the UK & all over the world live happy, healthy lives. The school took part in a competition run by UNICEF and Transport for London (TfL) to show what makes public transport great for children in the Capital. Children were asked to enter the competition in their own time. On 20 November, Hambrough children stood up for their rights. This year was extra special as it marked 30 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child – 30 years of rights that have helped transform children’s lives around the world. Children wore blue to school and donated £1.00. A total of £321.10 was raised and donated to UNICEF (Read more in Newsletter no 5 – RRSA – Outright campaign)
ROAD SAFETY WEEK: Road Safety Week took place during the week of 18th November and the whole school participated. This year’s theme was “Step up for safe streets”! Read more about Road Safety Week in Newsletter (5). During the week there were many activities such as:
- A launch assembly: the assembly led jointly by Waterside Development focused on the theme touching on road-safety not only when biking or walking but also on rail and travel safety generally. The assembly closed with the school choir singing the school Travel song.
- Beep Beep Day (13/11/19): Children in Years 1 & 2 took part in Beep Day. They took part in age appropriate activities around Road Safety and Bike Safety. Resources were made by teachers this year in class with children as an art activity and children put their creative skills to test in creating masks etc. This was a fun way of delivering the message to younger children to make them aware of the important message.
- Daily Gate Patrol: Once again, members of the school council, escorted by school staff, patrolled the front and rear entrances of the school to promote road safety, safer parking and generally encourage active travel to school.
- Story time sessions in classes: Story time in all classes were linked to the road safety theme.
- Digger Day: a “Digger (courtesy of Waterside Development) was parked in our playground. All children had great fun visiting and learning about the safety aspects of being around large construction vehicles and general road safety.
- Road Safety Banner Competition: as part of an art lesson, Year 6 took part in a competition run by Waterside Development team and created/designed travel banners, with the theme “No parking on the Zig-Zag lines”. Banners were created during an art lesson and entries handed over to Waterside Development. However there were no winners on this occasion!
- Pedestrian Skills training (12/11/19): Year 3 classes received pedestrian skills training and learnt essential road safety skills to make them safer pedestrians. Training was delivered by “For2Feet”, in groups of 10 children with 2 experienced instructors. Each group received one 45-minute training session on pavements around the school. The training was an invaluable skill for children to acquire.
- A Hands Up Survey: We undertook our annual hands up survey to gain an analysis on travel to school culture, on 20/11/19.
- Walks to Southall Station: As official adopters of Southall Station all year groups visited Southall station during the week to receive safety talks on rail safety. This was a great way to develop skills to educate children of rail and road safety
- JTA ACTIVE TRAVEL CHALLENGE (18/11/19 – 22/11/19): In partnership with the Local Authority, the school ran the Active Travel Bookmark Challenge. The travel working party decided to run this during Road Safety Week 2019. Global Ambassadors (and a staff member) were on timetable and could be found in the playground at the beginning of the day for children to get their bookmarks stuck with “smiley face stickers” if they had taken part in the challenge i.e. walked/cycled/scooted to school. (Newsletter 5)
CYCLING (BIKEABILITY COURSES): The school re-introduced it’s well-established programme of cycling proficiency at KS2 once again this year (after last year's gap year). The sessions were delivered by a new provider – cycleInstructor.com to children in Years 4, 5, & 6. The programme aims to develop children's & staff cycling skills. The programme is always well-received by children and parents. In 2019-2020, lessons were held for Y5 during 25th Nov – 6th Dec 2019; sessions were scheduled for Y3 & 4 from 23rd & 24th April 2020 and Y6 from 6th – 10th July 2020 but were cancelled due to COVID19. cycle Instructor.com even offered free bikeability courses to children in Years 3,4,5 & 6 during the summer vacations after lockdown restrictions were eased. With more and more staff also cycling into school, we plan to purchase a bike shelter for staff bikes in 2020-2021.
AIR QUALITY COMPETITION ACTIVITY ON POOR AIR QUALITY: Run by Sustrans, the school took part in designing a travel banner competition in January/February 2020. This also linked to our Rights Respecting work, global goals 13 (Climate action), and 3 (Good Health/Well-Being). The aim being to encourage people to help make our environment cleaner and pollute less to improve the quality of the air for everyone in London. Global Ambassadors ran separate assemblies for KS1 & KS2 to promote the competition, Templates and information were sent home as a half-term project for children to complete via letter and newsletter. Well-Done to Avijot Singh whose final entry was chosen and submitted to STA. (Read Newsletter 8)
AIR QUALITY DAY (Citizenship Week) – 27/01/20: The theme this year for our annual Citizenship week was “Climate Action”. The aim being to educate pupils and adults about the importance of improving air quality, and what we can do to reduce air pollution through various means (eg sustainable travel, recycling etc). Outline for the week included: daily morning “walk a mile” in Playground, Friends of the Earth assemblies around rubbish & recycling and air pollution, Friends of the Earth workshops with children, Young Town planners workshops planning a green environment, Y5 city hall trip –(travel by train), Y6 Parliament trip (travel by train). A recycling initiative was launched in the school & new recycling bins purchased. A recycling rota was developed for the Global ambassadors to collect and dispose. (Read more in newsletter 9)
AIR QUALITY DAY (Idling Workshops): 21/02/20: Run by the Mayor of London the school was due to take part in an air quality Idling project. The aim being to educate pupils and adults about the importance of improving air quality. On the 27th March an assembly led by the global ambassadors was scheduled to take place to promote this, to which parents were to be invited to attend and take part in a workshop – however due to school closure on the 20th March, because of COVID 19, this did not take place. Workshops with Year 5 and global ambassadors scheduled to take place during the day also did not take place. (Read what was planned, in newsletter 9)
WALK TO SCHOOL WEEK (18/05/20 – 22/05/20): The school still held it’s annual Walk to school week despite being in lockdown due to COVID 19, encouraging children and adults to walk to keep healthy and follow the government guidelines to be safe during the pandemic period. The Walking week was renamed WALK, WALK, WALK. A simplified outline of the week – including walking/cycling/scooting, happy shoes day, an improvised walking bus, designing a bookmark and cooking healthy rainbow meals - was set up during this period and children informed by text, email and newsletter. (Read about WALK WALK WALK in Newsletter 14)
We learnt that walking has many benefits. Walking:
- is good for the environment
- is an opportunity to learn about road safety
- keeps people fit and healthy reveals hidden treasures in the community
- provides quality time spent as a family.
- On Wednesday 20th we held a “HAPPY SHOES DAY”. Pupils wore shoes that made them happy and helped them to walk more – and emailed in their photographs.
- On Friday children were asked to help cook a special rainbow theme active lunch and share these images by email AND on Thursday, children were asked to create their own WALKING BUS.
2M SOCIAL DISTANCE FOOTWAY MARKINGS: Supporting social distancing for the school journey: : During school closure due to COVID 19, the LA offered the school 2m social distance footway markings and barriers to be installed around local streets near school entrance to make them pedestrianised or cycle zone areas.
Active Hambrough 2018-2019
It’s been another eventful, busy and active year with a lot of firsts for Hambrough! Once again the school participated in many initiatives throughout the year, in our endeavour to ensure children stay active, healthy and safe. This year meant our Gold status needed to be renewed and maintenance of Gold was one of the school's key priorities in our School Improvement Plan.
The year kick-started when staff were consulted on active travel at our first Inset day and the SDP for 2018/2019 was shared with all. One of our key priorities highlighted this year was to "embed initiatives supporting healthy and sustainable methods”. Our travel working party met and put an action plan together, strategically linking initiatives with healthy travel, healthy schools, PSHE and RRSA global goals. The working party initially was a four-member group (Head, Travel, PSHE and Healthy Schools co-ordinators) that cross linked with the School Council. However, the working party expanded later in the year when the RRSA lead also joined the group and appointed a group of Global ambassadors to support the work of both Travel and RRSA initiatives.
OFFICIAL ADOPTERS OF SOUTHALL STATION: Our first project began in September when the school became official adopters of Southall Train Station in September 2018, due to its close proximity to the school. Members of MTR Crossrail delivered a special assembly on 10/09/18 & explained what the adoption would mean for the school. The school Council (who formed part of the Travel Working party group) attended a celebratory event on 14/09/18 and travelled on the Elizabeth Line, the main aim of which was to encourage more use of public transport and inform of transport, including Rail safety. Later in the year, MTR invited our school choir to sing at Paddington station and also take part in designing a Christmas card – winners of which were invited to travel to Liverpool Street and board the Santa Express to go to meet Santa himself. (Read more in Newsletters 2 and 7)
ROAD SAFETY WEEK: Road Safety Week took place during the week of 19th November and the whole school participated . This year’s theme was “BikeSmart”! Read more about Road Safety Week in Newsletter During the week there were many activities such as:
- A launch assembly: the assembly led jointly by Mrs Singleton and MTR focused on BikeSmart, touching on on road-safety not only when biking or walking but also on rail and travel safety generally. The assembly closed with the school choir singing the school Travel song.
- Beep Beep Day (21/11/18): Children in Years 1 & 2 took part in Beep Day. They took part in age appropriate activities around Road Safety and Bike Safety. Resources were ordered from Brake and children put their creative skills to test in creating masks etc. This was a fun way of delivering the message to younger children to make them aware of the important message.
- Daily Gate Patrol: Members of the school council, escorted by school staff, patrolled the front and rear entrances of the school to promote road safety, safer parking and generally encourage active travel to school.
- Story time sessions in classes: Story time in all classes were linked to the road safety theme.
- Digger Day for Reception & Nursery: a “Digger (courtesy of Waterside Development) was parked in our playground on 21st & 22nd November. Children had great fun visiting and learning about the safety aspects of being around large construction vehicles and general road safety.
- Road Safety Banner Competition: Year 6 took part in “Design a Banner” Competition, the winner of which was Shayama Abdalla, whose banner was proudly displayed outside the school gates after a celebratory event, during Walk to School Week in May 2019.
- Pedestrian Skills training (19/11/18): Year 3 classes received pedestrian skills training and learnt essential road safety skills to make them safer pedestrians. Training was delivered by “For2Feet”, in groups of 10 children with 2 experienced instructors. Each group received one 45 minute training session on pavements around the school. The training was an invaluable skill for children to acquire.
- A Hands Up Survey: We undertook our annual hands up survey to ascertain travel to school culture on 20th October.
YTA ACTIVE TRAVEL CHALLENGE (19/11/18 – 23/11/18): In partnership with the Local Authority, the school ran the Active Travel Bookmark Challenge. The travel working party decided to run this during Road Safety Week 2018. School Councillors (and a staff member) were on timetable to be found in the playground at the beginning of the day for children to get their bookmarks initialled /stamped if they had taken part in the challenge i.e. walked/cycled/scooted to school.
WALK A MILE FITNESS WITH SCHOOL COUNCILLORS (w/c 21st & 28th JANUARY): Theme for our annual Citizenship weeks was “Healthy In & Out” when we learnt about the importance of being active in order to be healthy. School councillors decided to run the Walk a Mile activity in the playground at the start of each morning during the 2 weeks.
WALKING BEARS (25/02/19 – 12/07/19): Teddy Bears were donated by a member of staff. Children in the Nursery introduced to this activity –all children, in rotation, got the opportunity to take Bailey, Billy, Blake or Bobby home. During the week children to discuss safety on the road and about their adventures. They will record and draw their experiences in a diary. The activity will continue until the end of the summer term 2019.
JUNIOR TRAVEL (GLOBAL) AMBASSADORS: Travel Co-ordinator, Healthy School Co-ordinator & RRSA (Rights Respecting) co-ordinator) joined forces and invited pupils to put themselves forward to apply for the role of JTAs. As a result, about 20 pupils applied and presented their manifestos and subsequently 16 were appointed. Their main focus for the rest of this year was to promote and cascade messages of sustainable active travel and reinforce the school’s rights respecting agenda to the school community. (Read more about the Global ambassadors in Newsletter 11)
VIDEO COMPETITION ON POOR AIR QUALITY: Our newly appointed Global Ambassadors were keen to tackle the issue of poor air quality around Southall and promote active travel. They saw the video competition launched by the LA as a perfect opportunity to spread their message. In a special assembly led by the Head they promoted the Big Pedal Challenge. They then spent most of their lunchtimes over a period of about 8 days working on a video – laboriously putting together a script and videoing the shots. The video was compiled and then finally submitted to the LA on the 29th March.
BIG PEDAL CHALLENGE (29/03/19): The whole school community took part in a ONE-DAY Big Pedal challenge on 29/03/19. The event was promoted in an assembly led by the Head & Global Ambassadors, by newsletter & texts to parents. The aim was to promote a cycling (& scooting) travel culture & choose the highest recorded class within the school with most pupils who cycled, scooted or walked to school on the day. The cycle rack was overflowing. Three classes tied with the most recorded pupils scooting, cycling or walking on the day. Each class was presented with games for their classes in a celebration assembly. (Read more about the Big Pedal in Newsletters 10 & 11)
“THE VOICE” COMPETITION – 28/05/19: The school took part in “The Voice” competition run by MTR Crossrail to promote rail travel safety. Pupils were asked to do this activity in their own time, as homework. A total of 10 entries were submitted and we were absolutely delighted when one entry was chosen as the winning entry by MTR. The winner, Hetvi Patel was invited to Liverpool Street to experience a train journey in the driver’s cab and record a station announcement which was played in stations off peak times for a month. (Read more about the Voice winner in Newsletter 14)
WALK TO SCHOOL WEEK (17/05/19 – 24/05/19): Once again we took part in Walk to School Week, which is always a popular event. A launch assembly generated enthusiasm once again into walking to school. The assembly was led by the Headteacher and Global ambassadors. The assembly highlighted all the outline for the week and ended with choir singing the school’s travel song (Check out the travel song and sing along to the lyrics). Pupils were informed of all events planned: Travel Banner unveiling, Daily Walk a mile, Book Mark Competition & stamping, Daily Gate Patrol, Happy Shoes Day; Walking Bus, a Theme Lunch. (Read more about this year's Walk to School week in Newsletter 13)
We learnt that walking has many benefits. Walking:
- is good for the environment
- is an opportunity to learn about road safety
- keeps people fit and healthy
- reveals hidden treasures in the community
- provides quality time spent as a family.
The "Get Moving" challenge linked with the RRSA Global Goals 3 ,13 and 15 - " Good Health & Well-Being", "Climate Change" and " Life on Land". Activities were planned for all year groups throughout the week inside and outside the classroom, around these areas of work. As part of the Active Travel Challenge we took part in a competition run by Ealing to design next year’s bookmark. We asked children what they enjoyed about their journey to school and the designs showed some interesting and positive attitudes towards active travel. The best designs – one each from each Key stage – were submitted to the Local Authority and children presented with gift vouchers for Halfords. And in addition.....
- Every morning staff, parents and children were invited to WALK a MILE around the playground. The designated teacher leading the Walk met children and parents every morning at 8.15am in the playground and walked 6 laps of both playgrounds.
- On Tuesday 21st we held a “HAPPY SHOES DAY”. Pupils and staff wore shoes that made them happy and helped them to walk more. A total of £305.75 was collected, half of which was donated to Living Streets. The remainder was used to fund our Health Fair, held later in June 2019.
- Each morning a member of staff and members of the SCHOOL COUNCIL were on GATE PATROL while the Global Ambassadors were issuing stickers on all children who had walked, biked, or scooted to school to stick on their bookmarks. They also made sure that if you did come by car, you did so safely and in any event did not park or stop on the zig-zag lines.
- On Wednesday 22nd a special travel theme lunch was enjoyed by all
- AND on Wednesday 22nd we launched our first ENORMOUS WALKING BUS. The event was publicised heavily by our global ambassadors and through display of posters, texts, a launch assembly, the school website and letters and newsletters sent home. The bus was indeed enormous and attended and enjoyed by staff, volunteers, governors, representatives from the LA Travel team and pretty much three-quarters of the school parent/pupil community. Read more on the Walking Bus page.
HEALTH FAIR (05/06/19): The school held its annual Health Fair on 05/06/19 to promote healthy eating and healthy lifestyles including WALKING. Pupils enjoyed a Bike Smoothie and a Bike show among other activities. An activity timetable was developed & parents urged to join the walking challenge each morning Cross-curricular activities included: visit by the dentist, walk a mile challenge, lunch-time helpers promoting healthy packed lunch ideas, healthy cooking, sports/fitness activities, health-related singing. (Read more about the Health Fair in Newsletter 14)
BALANCE BIKE EVENT: We were delighted when ten pupils from Mayfield and Hambrough Primary Schools were selected to take part in a Balance Bike Celebration day, kindly hosted by Selbourne Primary School in their large field and playground on 11/06/19. There were balance bike races, a BMX display and lots of free time to ride bikes. The event goes a long way in developing children’s balance & co-ordination skills. (Read more about the Balance Bike event in Newsletter 14)
GO GREEN DAY FOR CLEAN AIR: As part of our Rights Respecting ethos, we held a GO GREEN DAY on 1st July to promote the importance of clean air. Once again our Global Ambassadors were on board spreading the word and promoting this event and as a special treat for their hard work four lucky children got the opportunity to see the premier of Toy Story 4 at Leicester Square. (Read more about the Go Green Day in Newsletters 14 & 15)