In July Mr Goodwin shared our concern as a school for the safety of students who ride their bikes to school, as there were a number of near-misses with cars and also some incidents where students have fallen off their bikes and were hurt. The volume of traffic outside school has risen in recent years and more students are using bikes than in the past. However, very few students wear bike helmets. This is a concern.
Since July we have introduced a number of measures to improve the safety of students travelling to and from school, including a delayed exit for students on bikes to 3:15pm. This ensures the school buses have left and road traffic has calmed before students exit the school on bikes at the end of the day. We are delighted to say that this has been highly successful and we have had no further accidents reported to us since this change.
All students also attend bike safety assemblies each year. This week year 7 students learned about the safe use of bikes and road safety including the importance of wearing a cycling helmet and how it can reduce the risk of injury.
We also work with the Department for Transport scheme “Bikeability” where students are given a practical lesson on using bikes safely.
“Bikeability is today’s cycle training programme. It’s about gaining practical skills and understanding how to cycle on today’s roads.”
We do not want to stop here as the safety of our students is of paramount importance to us. We are currently investigating other ways to reward students who demonstrate safe use of bikes in the community and take notice of advice such as wearing bike helmets.
With research showing that wearing a bike helmet can reduce the risk of head injury by 60%, we are supporting a parent’s petition to make wearing a helmet compulsory when riding bikes. To find out more and support the campaign click the link below:
https://www.change.org/p/make-it-compulsory-to-wear-a-bicycle-helmet
High profile celebrities are also backing similar campaigns to wear bike helmets including Olympic rower James Cracknell.
If you would like to work with us to help improve bike safety please fill in the contact form below.
https://forms.gle/P7RaArmviHdj9QqC6
Use your head, wear a helmet.