Cycle Friendly Secondary School

What is the Cycle Friendly School Award?

Cycling Scotland’s Cycle Friendly Secondary School Award is a nationally recognised award for all secondary schools in Scotland.  Following the success of the popular Cycle Friendly Awards for employers and primary schools the Cycle Friendly Secondary School Award is aimed at supporting and championing those schools that are committed to increasing cycling amongst pupils and staff members.

There are a wide range of programmes, services, professionals and volunteers able to support secondary schools increase levels of cycling.  The Cycle Friendly Secondary School Award aims to signpost and bring these together, while also helping schools to overcome any barriers towards cycling.

To support your school the Cycle Friendly Secondary School Award Handbook provides all the information needed to be able to help your school achieve the award.  It highlights case studies, useful sources of information and tips on how your school can go about creating a ‘whole school’ culture of cycling.

The step-by-step Cycle Friendly Secondary School Award process

1. Identify a committed school ‘cycle champion’ to help guide your work.

2. Register your school online here

3. Complete the online self-assessment – this is quick and easy to do and allows us to identify the most appropriate support for you.

4. Cycling Scotland will feed back any recommendations and an action plan, offering a site visit where appropriate.

5. Once you have collected the supporting evidence we will carry out a short assessment visit.

6. Successful schools will recieve the Cycle Friendly Secondary Award and support with publicity.

7. Those schools that do exceptionally well (score over 90 points in their self-assessment) will be awarded ‘with distinction’.

How can your school promote and encourage cycling?

Promotion

There are various ways your school can encourage cycling amogst pupils  and staff members.  One of the easiest ways is to raise awareness through promotional activities such as Dr. Bike sessions, taking part in Bike Week events, cycle challenges and Sustrans’ Big Pedal. If your school doesn’t already have one, why not set up a bicycle users group (BUG) and they can help you come up with ideas.

Cycle Training

Cycle training should be provied to pupils.   Various different types of cycle training are availble to promote to pupils.  On road cycle training, such as Bikeabilty Scotland Level 3 or cycle commuter can be offered to pupils to extend and refresh their existing skils  Bikeabilty Scotland Level 3 training enables pupils to navigate more complex junctions and plan journeys effectively.  Opportunities are also avilable for staff and senior pupils to develop as leaders and trainers – ideal for wider achievement and CPD.

Cycle parking

Attractive and accessible cycle storage can give staff and pupils the confidence to cycle in to school.  Pupils and staff members will be more inclined to cycle to school if they have somewhere secure, accessible and dry to store their bikes.  Ideally, changing facilities and clothes lockers would also be made available to pupils and staff.  Volume, type and style of cycle parking will depend on the school, but you can obtain some excellent guidance on parking from both Cycling Scotland’s engineering team and Sustrans Scotland.

Pool bicycles

Several of the schools highlighted in our case studies have been successful in funding bike fleets to help embed cycling in the PE  curriculum, as well as support access to bicycles in the local community.    You may wish to investigate fundraising opportunities to procure your own fleet of pool bicycles.

Other useful information

For more information on Bikeability Scotland click on the following link http://www.cyclingscotland.org/our-projects/cycle-training/bikeability-scotland-2/

Various information sheets are availale on the Sustrans website  http://www.sustrans.org.uk

Hall of fame –  Please visit our Cycle Friendly School Hall of Fame – showing all our Cycle Friendly Schools with a selection of helpful case studies to give you ideas and promote shared learning.