Walking Wednesdays

Walking Wednesdays is an initiative that schools can adopt (and adapt) to encourage children to walk to school at least one day a week – for this initiative, on Wednesdays. Of course, it may be any day of the week that best suits the school community. They might, for instance, have a Move It Monday, a Travel Light Tuesday or Fresh-air Friday.
 
Christchurch has adapted the Walking Wednesdays initiative and developed a Walk or Wheel Wednesdays Class Challenge.

How does Walking Wednesdays work?

Walking Wednesdays may run all year around; during the spring and summer terms; or for a shorter period of five weeks. It’s up to the school but it’s a good idea to try and sustain the initiative throughout the school year.

Incentives and rewards can be given to children to encourage them to participate – and keep participating.

Children may walk part of the way to school or they may walk the whole way. Whatever option is chosen, it will mean less traffic congestion at the school gate.

Children who don't walk the whole distance to school can be dropped off at a point on their ‘bus’  route where caregivers feel they can walk safely the rest of the way, or where caregivers feel they can walk with them without having to walk all the way from home. Alternatively, the children may be able to hook into an existing walking school bus. 

Unlike walking school buses, adult supervision isn’t necessarily a component of the initiative. Again, it’s up to the school and caregivers. However, it’s important to ensure children are familiar with good road safety behaviour.

What are the benefits of Walking Wednesdays?

As with other walk to school initiatives, the benefits are enormous.

Once caregivers and children get used to Walking Wednesdays, they may be interested in finding out more about walking school buses and how they work.

How do I start one?

Caregivers or schools keen to see Walking Wednesdays operating should contact their local council and find out if a road safety coordinator can help set up and maintain the Walking Wednesdays initiative.

Schools may wish to trial Walking Wednesdays for one term to gauge the level of support for having it as an ongoing activity.

It’s important to encourage as many children as possible to participate. Here are some suggestions to encourage children to walk to school every Wednesday.

• Reward them with stickers or certificates (eg when they have walked to school every Wednesday for a month).
• Introduce the Walking Wednesdays Class Challenge.
• Invite a local celebrity to walk to school on a Walking Wednesday and contact the local newspaper, suggesting it writes a story about the event and take a photo.
• Ask students to prepare media releases about their Walking Wednesday initiative. Send them to the local paper, inviting them to cover the story.
• Talk about Walking Wednesdays in assembly, discussing the benefits of walking regularly.
• Display classroom progress charts on the wall and get children to record their walks to and from school every Wednesday.
• Get students to design posters and promotional leaflets, and display them at the school office.

Christchurch leads the challenge

Walk or Wheel Wednesdays is one of the ways that Christchurch City Council’s Schools Coordinator Joy Kingsbury-Aitken is encouraging primary school children to build exercise into their daily routine.
>> Read about Joy's work in Christchurch

Page created: 1 May 2007