Cycling UK Forum

Philip Benstead wrote:I have looked up St Mary Bourne in Test Valley, Hants on the map and found that I have cycled passed this school on a number of occasions

It really is a lovely area for cycling.

9 Does the Local Authority run Bikeability /National Standard Cycle Training Courses?

There are a limited number of schools being provided with funding to run National Standard/Bikeability in the County with some emphasis on deprived areas. The Bourne Valley is definitely not one of those! However there are providers who can and do deliver National Standard courses throughout the County - ie training available for all not just who the LA selects or where there are often hard-pressed volunteers.

I understand the St Mary Bourne school provides the LA's own limited volunteer-based scheme - mainly playground based and on a few local roads. I believe it is limited to 10 children of 10 years plus and was last held in June. This means that once these children have their 'certificate' they are leaving the village school and off to secondary education in one of the nearby towns.
The local school does not benefit.

The only time that there are likely to be any children at St Mary Bourne who have undertaken a course and are over 10 is a week or two at the end of the Summer Term. That is the only period that anyone can ride to school under the school's present constraints. For the following year, unless any extra training is provided in the early Autumn (I don't think it is) no one can ride to school for the vast majority of the school year.

This is the situation at the majority of schools in Hampshire.
If training were carried out for even 9+ and Year 5 instead of targetting 10+ in year 6 then the school would benefit for the whole of the following year.

I have already provided training to a number of parents in the area including some who lived just a short ride from the school who were not 'selected' or for the school's course. This has included under 10s. Others wanted training to a level that included real road journeys, ie National Standard/Bikeability rather than the limited LA training, and others disagreed with the over 10 rule, rightly believing that children can have road training earlier.

I will offer the school access to National Standard/Bikeability training. This can of course be in addition to their own scheme, run parallel to it or better still work together with their existing volunteers. It can be in the form of after school clubs or can even be arranged independently or through a PTA. The latter can even use cycle-training as a fund-raising activity*

Two weeks ago a course at another Hampshire school raised over £500 for its PTA as well as providing training for 40 youngsters, many aged 8 and 9.

This has been a good thread

John
Hampshire Cycle Training
Accredited National Standard Cycle Training
http://www.hampshirecycletraining.org.uk/

Hampshire Cycle Training wrote:There are a limited number of schools being provided with funding to run National Standard/Bikeability in the County with some emphasis on deprived areas. The Bourne Valley is definitely not one of those

ah, but hang on. Our local school has used some of its travel plan money to fund bike riding sessions and Dr. bike sessions. esp for the younger end (Y7's) BTW I know I'm comparing a secondary school with the OP's primary school problem. Get bike training into the travel plan and it'll be funded.

pigman wrote:

Hampshire Cycle Training wrote:There are a limited number of schools being provided with funding to run National Standard/Bikeability in the County with some emphasis on deprived areas. The Bourne Valley is definitely not one of those

ah, but hang on. Our local school has used some of its travel plan money to fund bike riding sessions and Dr. bike sessions. esp for the younger end (Y7's) BTW I know I'm comparing a secondary school with the OP's primary school problem. Get bike training into the travel plan and it'll be funded.

That's one avenue that's been used in Hampshire - there are others too.
Yr5 is a good group to target as the LA is only interested <cough> in Yr6 over 10s.
Meanwhile I believe all schools are encouraged to submit Travel Plans with the carrot of a Bike Shed on approval..
There can be conflict when one Department in the Council is telling Head Teachers one thing, while others are encouraging cycling. Travel Plans and Road Safety are separate Departments and don't always talk to each other.
But then that's local authorities - can't run a p... etc etc ...cont.p94/[i]

My son had the same in his primary school. Totally inadequate cycle course in the last month at the school. I did criticise it on the forum at the time. Phil Benstead may remember.

I did ask the year before if my son could do the course a year early, it was well known that he cycled long distances already. The system was too inflexible, the head said she would stick him in someone else's place if they didnt turn up. However the council only funded it for year 6 pupils.

The headteacher was concerned enough about his safety to order him to wear a helmet while on his bike! That is while on his bike with parents during evenings etc. Not to and from school.

Children not deemed fit to ride bikes were however expected to turn up with them in perfect condition or not be taught. So excluding the children who needed the help the most.

Its a cars' world.

Could you club together with some other parents that live near you to run some sort of rota? Do you live close enough together? It doesn't matter how many adults there are does it? So as long as the kids are accompanied by an adult, then everything is fine. So... one adult and five kids is ok. The kids get to cycle to school together, the head teacher is happy because they are cycling with an adult, the parents get to ride a bike for one morning/afternoon per week, the bikes gets securely stored at school, everyone benefits.

Otherwise... is there another viable solution? Bottom line is the kids are safe and that's all that matters. Better safe than sorry as far as I'm concerned. I think putting a matter of principle or rights ahead of a young child's safety is foolish. What happens if a nine year old kid gets killed cycling to school and the head had to live with his/herself for not bringing some sort of safety measures into place, despite being advised otherwise? It helps to look at it from eveyone's perspective in my opinion.

It's a damn shame that the safe cycling schemes aren't introduced for younger kids.

Get the kids accompanied by an adult and it'll really make a difference. Easier said than done, I know, but these are quite young kids. I was knocked off my bike when I was about 10 and it was just a total mistake on my part, despite having ridden on the roads for a full year. An adult would have stopped me making that mistake and saved me alot of pain.

Simon.

emergency_pants

I walked to school on my own when I was four - in common with most of the other children; my mother took me on the first day so I would know which class I was in. Obviously, traffic conditions have changed a lot in the intervening six decades and a 4 year-old walking unaccompanied along the A 647 in Leeds would face much more danger than we did. These changes have not inevitably occurred through the operation of some natural law but rather because our society has accepted them.

In the not very far off future we are likely to have sixth formers being routinely accompanied to school because it is unsafe to do otherwise.

thirdcrank wrote:emergency_pants

I walked to school on my own when I was four - in common with most of the other children; my mother took me on the first day so I would know which class I was in. Obviously, traffic conditions have changed a lot in the intervening six decades and a 4 year-old walking unaccompanied along the A 647 in Leeds would face much more danger than we did. These changes have not inevitably occurred through the operation of some natural law but rather because our society has accepted them.

In the not very far off future we are likely to have sixth formers being routinely accompanied to school because it is unsafe to do otherwise.

Yes, I do agree. Good point and I think you're right that issues should be discussed and considered better and beaurocracy (sp?) should be challenged where it's just being introduced by clueless politicians, the PC brigade, just easier to deal with or because of the no-win-no-fee situation nowdays.

However, I think there is some 'natural law' involved when it comes to traffic vs walking or cycling to school because the population has exploded and there are now three times as many cars on the road as there were even in my school days, 25 years ago. Unhappily, car is king at the moment and getting rid of them - that's the long-term goal. In the short-term, I'm sad that we have to resort to defensive measures, in my opinion and safety for kids is top of the list. if that means having to accompany under-10's to school on their bikes then so-be-it.

I feel sorry for the people in rural areas though, that suffer through policy introduced due to of city/town issues. I think a nine year old cycling a mile to school on such quiet roads shouldn't be restricted like that.

Slightly off-topic but I've just been back from Athens. Thank god we don't live there! The car really does rule there and I think I saw ONE cyclist the whole time of my visit. It stinks of car exhaust and even the pavements are horrendous. We couldn't get the buggy pram down a single pavement without having to walk in the road... pootholes and cars parked everywhere, had to walk into a three-lane motorway (Syngrou) on one occasion. Shocking. I hope our great great grandchildren will look back at our times and wonder what the hell we were doing.

emergency_pants wrote:However, I think there is some 'natural law' involved when it comes to traffic vs walking or cycling to school because the population has exploded and there are now three times as many cars on the road as there were even in my school days, 25 years ago.

The number of vehicles and the amount of traffic has obviously increased hugely. In the UK it has increased disproportionately in connection with the school run, partly because of policies over choice of school, partly because of childcare arrangements, but also because people believe that the amount of traffic during the school run is dangerous for children.

The increase in the numbers of motor vehicles is a completely social phenimenon. It could have been managed in different ways and in some parts of the world it is. You mention Athens as an example.

I recently worked with a large County Council and their policy was to encourage cycling, so I checked with HCCs site and found this:

http://www.hants.gov.uk/schooltravelplans/cycling.html

It starts by saying all the right things but then comes out with the bit about children not having the ability to accurately judge speed and distance. Might be worth asking them for details of the research and any other information on which this decision was based under FOI.

Jack wrote:I recently worked with a large County Council and their policy was to encourage cycling,

In my experience, the authorities in the UK say they encourage cycling, which is not the same thing. They encourage it in the sense of talking it up, not in the sense of making it happen. When it comes down to actually doing anything there are always reasons why it's not really feasible.

Incidentally, I see from the link that they claim to be able to train a cycle trainer in three hours. That might just be one of the reasons ... oh, why bother?....

This may be of interest


http://rileychildrenshospital.com/infor ... skills.jsp


Are they correct, do we think our children are different, or can children learn these skills earlier with the right guidance?

Philip Benstead wrote:This may be of interest


http://rileychildrenshospital.com/infor ... skills.jsp


Are they correct, do we think our children are different, or can children learn these skills earlier with the right guidance?

I think it's significant that this comes from the US, where pedestrians are regarded as wierdos and are an endangered species.

When I visited the US for work, I walked from my hotel to the office, getting a reaction of stunned amazement.
The two buildings were next door to each other.
Given this attitude to walking even the shortest distance, it's not surprising if kids don't develop the necessary skills - the problem is lack of practice, not age.

St Paul's Primary School in Portsmouth in the Daily Mail
[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088207/Health-safety-row-boy-10-barred-cycling-school.html]boy 10 barred from cycling to school
[/url]
Headteacher Fran Chapman today defended her school's stance.
She said: 'The road outside the school is a very dangerous place. At the beginning and the end of the day it gets extremely congested.'
The school would review its current rules if plans to make the road one-way are approved, she added.
Chairman of governors Janet Lynch said Portsmouth city council backed the school's stance, adding: 'We would love to be able to say yes, but at the moment it just isn't safe enough.'

Speshact wrote:St Paul's Primary School in Portsmouth in the Daily Mail
[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1088207/Health-safety-row-boy-10-barred-cycling-school.html]boy 10 barred from cycling to school
[/url]
Headteacher Fran Chapman today defended her school's stance.
She said: 'The road outside the school is a very dangerous place. At the beginning and the end of the day it gets extremely congested.'
The school would review its current rules if plans to make the road one-way are approved, she added.
Chairman of governors Janet Lynch said Portsmouth city council backed the school's stance, adding: 'We would love to be able to say yes, but at the moment it just isn't safe enough.'

That's completely Barking, given that Portsmouth is the first city in the UK to adopt 20mph as the default speed limit.
I see they even said he can go by bike, provided his mum accompanies him in a car! It seems they are absolutely determined to ensure the roads are congested!

If they had any real concern for the kids' welfare, they'd BAN the use of cars for short distance school runs!

Sadly this School is in an ideal position for this kid to commute!

There is a cycle path almost up to the door, and it is only the last few yards that are a problem.

Mind you the frequency of vehicles pulling out of Bourne Road in front of me, or performing "left hook" to save a few second in dropping their children off is all too common.

From this experience of the standard of driving these parents display then I am quite prepared to believe that the school approach is "dangerous".

However the answer is to deal with the inconsiderate driving, illegal parking and general poor standards in this road rather than ban a child form cycling...