benefits

A travel plan can bring huge benefits to a school, its pupils and the surrounding community. These benefits can include:

• Better long-term health prospects for children
• Improved alertness and pupil concentration
• Enhanced road safety skills, levels of responsibility and general independence amongst children
• Reduced parking congestion outside the school gates, leading to fewer hazards for children, parents and other road users
• Reduced parking congestion in nearby streets; improving relations between the school and the local community
• Builds better social skills through increased interaction between pupils, their parents and other children
• Valuable opportunities to integrate travel and environmental themes into the school curriculum, for example children can:
  • analyse their classmates’ travel habits
  • consider the amount of CO2 emitted by the different modes of transport
  • plot where their class live on maps
  • design walking routes to school
  • design signs for a road safety scheme outside their school.

Schools can also benefit from direct grants from the Department for Children, Schools and Families for the installation of travel plan measures when they have completed an approved School Travel Plan. These funds average around £5,000 for primary schools and £10-12,000 for secondary schools. The grant can be used for any travel planning measure but could include things like cycle storage, improved entrances/pathways or even shelters for parents to wait on rainy days.