Modeshift STARS team helps make the Sheffield school run a safer and healthy one

“But kids should be able to come out of their school and have the freedom to walk, run or ride their scooters without the fear of being killed.”Daniel is an Active Travel officer for Modeshift STARS, who have worked in more than 100 South Yorkshire schools over the last three years to help schools increase walking, cycling and scootering and reduce the dangers of cars and car parking outside the school gates.

Almost 100,000 South Yorkshire pupils have been involved so far.The STARS team help primary, secondary and special schools devise travel plans to increase the number of families travelling actively to school and reduce the number of car journeys.

One of the options for schools – alongside costumed walks, juggling commuters, bike and scooter mending and riding sessions and parking and walking tickets to reward active travellers - is to trial closing a school’s streets to motor vehicles for a day.The idea is to encourage more families to try making the journey to school more fun and less stressful, says Dan’s fellow active travel officer Dom Qaiser-Sweeting.“The atmosphere when we close a street is incredible. We have kids playing on the street, making chalk pictures and riding their scooters.

"It’s a great community environment where everyone feels safe, instead of having parents shouting at each other out of their cars while jostling for space with their engine running,” he says.“It gives parents the chance to try out walking with their kids to school and afterwards people say to us, ‘This is how it should be. I wish it could be like this every day’.”This week, Sheffield schools can sign up free for the next Modeshift STARS 10 Day Active Travel Challenge which runs from October 12-23.By registering and taking part, schools can take a big step towards changing their school gate environment.

The move to install more School Streets as part of the Sheffield City Region’s Government-funded active travel programme will be focused on schools who can show they’re already helping families take steps away from daily driven school runs of often less than a mile.Sheffield Modeshift STARS officer Rosie Frazer says simple things, like making sure a school has somewhere safe to leave bikes and scooters (and pushchairs), help parents make the change.

Showing pupils that they can actually do a walking journey of 10-15 minutes or so is crucial to kids who may never have walked to school before.“I live about five minutes’ walk from our school and I know if I did drive it it would take me a lot longer to get the kids strapped in the car and then find somewhere to park,” she says.

“And the kids enjoy it, they race ahead and chat to people and they now know most of the people by sight who live round here, which is lovely.”

Course opportunity for young film-makersAfter a year when families have been out walking, running and cycling their local patch during lockdown - and possibly realising how close their school actually is - the STARS team are helping promote ‘waking bubbles’ around schools.

This is a map – downloadable by registered schools - that shows a ‘five minute walk bubble’ around each school.

The idea is that driving parents will try to park outside the bubble and walk the final five minutes, or walk/scoot it all if they live less than half a mile away.Many local pubs and business on bubble edges have already stepped in to offer empty morning car parks to driving parents who want to try a five-minute bubble walk, says Dom.“We’re not asking everyone to change their lifestyle overnight,” he says, “but we are saying just try it to start with and see how it works for you.”Reducing cars, pavement parking and engine idling around the school gates might make a few people disgruntled in the short term, says Rosie.“But people will get used to it, I think. What most parents want I reckon, is an approach to schools where kids are the priority, not cars.”See: www.modeshiftstars.org

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