Daylighted Day Campaign November 2014

On Friday 24th of October the “Daylighted Campaign” was be celebrated throughout schools Mayo by making Mayo the Brightest County in Ireland!

The aim of the campaign was to encourage cyclists and pedestrians to wear luminous and reflective clothing and use lights when commuting to school, work or for leisure. The campaign also reminded drivers use their dipped headlights and to slow down and watch out for pedestrians and cyclists, particularly around schools, homes and shops.

Pupils in schools were encouraged to dress up wearing crazily bright clothes or fancy dress and illuminate their walk or cycle to school.

Westport Smarter Travel celebrated the day by giving prizes to schools with the best “Daylighted Fancy Dress”competition. Sir Walk-a-Lot visited each school and each winner won a Halloween Bike Buffet ticket which took place on Monday the 27th of October. The event was a great success with all schools making a special effort to take part. The day ended with a fashion show extravaganza in Scoil Padraig where senior pupils showcased their excellent costumes. Sir Walk-a-Lot had a very difficult task in choosing the winners!

Winners from Scoil Padraig, Laura Galvin, Caitriona Sweeney (Teacher and Green-School Coordinator), Julia Sztejner, Sir Walk-A-Lot, Dylan Mulroy (Overall Winner) and Mary Timlin (Teacher)

Winners from Holy Trinity NS, Elenor O’Toole (Overall Winner) Amber Erskine Hadden, Sir Walk-A-Lot, Matthew Cleary

and Ivan Fair.

The overall Winner from St Colmcille’s NS was Laoise Geraghty first on left displaying her Halloween Bike Buffet ticket.

Winners from Gaelscoil Na Cruaiche were Oscar Breathnach, Kelsey Ni Mhaolrua (Overall Winner),

Aoife Standún and Saul Mac Carthaigh with Sir Walk-A-Lot.

Scoil Padraig’s

Daylighted Day

Fashion Show

Extravaganza

Pupils from Scoil Padraig

who participated in their Daylighted Day fashion show and competition

Westport’s Christmas Walk to School Day 2014

Well done to all the pupils in Westport who walked, cycled, Park’N’Strided, scooted and carpooled to school on Wednesday 17th of December. Schools celebrated a special Christmas Walk to School morning and pupils wore Santa hats and dressed Christmassy. The Westport Smarter Travel mascot “Sir Walk A Lot” and his special Christmas elves visited Scoil Padráig and wished all pupils, staff and parents a Happy Christmas and gave out stickers. A special presentation was made by Sir Walk A Lot to Principal Mr. Stiofán O Móráin for all his support and promotion of Westport Smarter Travel throughout the years.

Westport Smarter Travel wish to say a big thank you to all the staff, pupils and parents for making 2014 a great year for smarter travel in Westport schools. There has been a 10% reduction in the number of students travelling to school by car since 2012 and an increase in walking, cycling and Park n’ Stride. We hope that 2015 will be our best year yet!!

Sacred Heart School Gate Analysis—3rd December 2014

Twelve Fifth Year students Katie Noonan, Lisa Murray, Rebecca Sammon, Shauna Sammon, Leary Brazel, Shona Moran, Grace Reid, Celine O Donnell, Katie Noonan , Shauna Sammon, Sarah Murphy and Rebecca Sammon examined traffic through the main gate, back entrance to school, drop offs at distillery road, pick-ups at Top Oil station and Mill Road.

2 surveys completed - 8.40am to 9.00am and 3.30pm to 4.55pm

We recommend cars could use the various Park’N’Stride locations around Westport. In the evening, 58 cars & 7 buses pick up students at the Top Oil station and 20 cars pick up at Mill Road instead of going to the main school entrance. We hope to increase walkers and cyclists to school in 2015 by running competitions, offering free lunches and launching the Greenest Class Competition.

2014

8.40am to 9.00am

2013

8.30am to 9.00am

Cars (drove through main gate) 11 21

Bus (parked outside school gates)

2 (38 students disembarked)

8 (120 students disembarked)

Cars drop off outside school gate 29 42

Walkers at back entrance 28

- 11 dropped by car - 6 walked - 8 ParkNStrided

70

Staff cars 30 36

Cars who drop off at Distillery Rd 36

Cars who drop off across the road from school gates

101 bus

Passing traffic 4809 busses

Rice College School Gate Analysis—5th December 2014

The Smarter Travel Committee Students from Transition Year – Maciek Baszynsk, Eoin Conway, Séan McGuire, Andrew Gannon & Shane McLoughlin examined traffic passing through the main gate and the Greenway entrance to school. Eva Mcintyre from Westport Smarter Travel assisted with the survey. The results are in the below table:

In

order to ease congestion in Westport, in the school & outside the school gates, cars could use the various Park’N’Stride locations around Westport. The committee highlighted that 102 cars driving through the main gate was very high. The Greenway entrance and the new pedestrian crossing on the Castlebar Road now enables walkers & cyclists to travel to school on a safe route. The committee will be involved in numerous initiatives, competitions and introduce incentives in 2016 to try and increase walking and cycling and reduce the private car travelling to Rice College.

We Love Westport Smarter Travel Week 2015 – Photo Competition

We Love WST Week took place form 9th to 13th of February 2015. This week promoted school children to get back out walking, cycling and

Rice College School Gate Analysis December 2013 December 2014

Cars (drove through main gate) 134 102

Bus (drop off Knockranny road ) 11 9

Bike 2 0

Walkers through main gate 45 13

Cars drop offs at Knockranny Rd 15 29

Car drop offs at Fr Angela’s Park 7 12

Greenway Entrance 16 walk from home

2 cyclists

7 Park’N’Stride

5 walk from home

0 cyclists

7 Park’N’Stride

Staff Cars 38 40

Park’N’Striding to school for 2015. To link in with St. Valentine’s Day schools entered Westport Smarter Travel’s Photo Competition. This competition was titled “I Love My Journey to School”. Pupils were asked to take any photos about their own journey to school and what they love about it. Photos could be of people, scenery, nature or anything they love about their journey. All photos were excellent and the judges had a really difficult task in choosing the winners. The winners in each school were presented with their prizes by the WST Mascot Sir Walkalot with help from Eva McIntyre and members of the Sacred Heart Schools Smarter Travel Committee Rebecca, Sarah and Katie.

The winning photos on display and Sir Walk a Lot presenting the photos to the winners in each primary school. “We Love Our Journey

to School” Photo Competition

Supersmart Mover Competition Winners 2015

The Sacred Heart School for organised a very successful Supersmart Mover Competition. The competition was launched in February and students began tracking their smarter travel journeys in March and April 2015. Each student got a special log card and recorded how they travelled over a 2 week period e.g.

they would tick “W” for walk. Each tick represented a walk to and from school. Once 10 journeys to and from school were complete they completed their logcards and in return got a voucher for hot chocolate from Marlene’s Cafe. Overall 116 cards were completed which represents 1180 smarter travel journeys to school & from school. This can be broken down into 670 walking journeys, 310 Park’N’Stide journeys, 30 bike journeys and 170 carpool journeys were made to & from school. Over 61 pupils from 1st to 3rd year participated in the initiative. The overall winner was Ariadna Gormaz Kelly from 1B, who completed 4 filled logcards, which equals 80 walking journeys to and from school. The runner up was Caoimhe O Rourke from 2A. Due to its success the initiative will return in September whereby every year group will be encouraged to participate. Here are some of the comments from students who participated in the initiative:

Chloe Staunton – “Walking clears your head before and after school”Mia van Rens – “I liked the fresh air in the morning before school. It woke me up!”Sarah McKenna – “Carpooling is better for the environment and I liked meeting my friend before school”.

Principal Brendan McHugh, Ariadna Gormaz Kelly (Winner Supersmart Mover Competition), Caoimhe O’Rourke (Runner Up Supersmart Mover Competition) and Eva McIntyre Westport Smarter Travel.

Launch of the Sacred Heart Schools Supersmart Mover Competition 2015

As part of the Supersmart Mover Competition all participants completed pledge colour cards. Each student wrote their Smarter Travel pledge and it was posted on to a board and displayed throughout the school. Teams of Transition Years got pupils to sign registration forms, complete pledges on colourful post-its and then students received their special WST pledge wristbands. The colourful pledge-boards will be displayed throughout the school.

Left to right – Transition years with their completed pledge board and registration forms, TYs showing their

pledge wristbands and pledge-boards, Chloe from Third Year making her WST pledge, students busy

registering for the competition.

Primary School Smartest Travel Class Initiative 2015

In 2015 the WST Smartest Travel class was launched in 2015. This initiative allows all schools to promote smarter travel modes and monitors travel patterns. Every class in each school is monitored once a week on how they travel to school – the class with the most sustainable travel modes will be awarded the special WST trophy for their classroom for that week or month. Is initiative is similar to the Green-School Travel programme’s Golden Boot and Golden Bike Initiative. This will be rolled out every year.

Heavy School Bags

Book Free Homework

One of the main barriers to secondary students walking or cycling to school is the issue of very heavy school bags. In order to try and alleviate this, Westport Smarter Travel negotiated with school staff to hold regular Book Free Homework Days. Although it is unrealistic to hold Book Free Homework everyday (due to subjects, exams and the intensive curriculum in secondary schools) it allows schools the opportunity to walk, cycle and Park’N’Stride on various days. Feedback has been very positive from the schools with this initiative. It requires a great Smarter Travel Coordinator teacher in the school who can communicate easily with staff colleges. The days are promoted using posters and announcements by the Smarter Travel School Committee on the intercoms.

Pannier Rental Scheme

In order to help students in secondary schools to cycle to school with heavy bags Westport Smarter Travel holds a pannier rental scheme. For 10 euro students can rent the panniers for one school year. This is a great initiative as panniers can be quite expensive e.g. 60 euro plus. It is hoped to roll out the scheme to the Sacred Heart School and Rice College in September.

The Sacred Heart School Greenest Class Competition 2015

Class 2A were the overall winners of the Greenest Travel Class 2015. The students made a huge effort to travel to school in a sustainable manner. Lots of girls cycled to school – 4 even cycled from Newport which is 8 miles from Westport! The class not only promoted sustainable travel, they also kept their classroom litter free, recycled bins were in order and they saved lots of energy by not wasting electricity and heat. MS Doherty the Green-School Coordinator did spot checks once a week on all the classrooms every week. The girls went on a daytrip to Clare Island for winning the competition.

Each classroom filled in the above table. The Smartest Travel Class Committee administered the competition and randomly assessed each class every week.

Westport Walking “Carbon Buster” Bus Initiative 2015WOW! There was plenty of sunshine and smiles on the morning of the 13th of May in Westport! Over 250 pupils took part in 2 giant "Carbon Busting" walking buses along the greenways to St. Colmcille's NS and Scoil Phadraig. The schools celebrated National WOW (Walk On Wednesday) Day. It was a really fun morning and an excellent achievement to all who took part. Lots of parents, pupils and teachers joined in the walking buses to school. The buses were full of colour with especially made banners, balloons and coloured hi vis vests. Some fun characters like Micky Mouse, Scooby Doo and the Westport Smarter Travel mascot Sir Walk-a-Lot were great company during the morning stroll. Each bus had a special driver and conductor to make sure the journeys ran smoothly."The event was a great success, lots of children and parents loved taking part in the

walking buses and look forward to lots more walking on our greenways and streets to school" - Eva McIntyre Westport Smarter Travel. “The walking bus was a brilliant idea and the sun was shining!” - Margaret Kennedy a parent from St Colmcille’s NS.

Quay NS

On Friday 12th of June over 70 pupils competed a cycle skills day with Eva McIntyre. Also all these pupils cycled to school and continued to do so until the summer holidays. The school will be undergoing works during the summer to improve access for walkers and cyclists on the school grounds.

Bike Week 2015On Monday 15th of June Scoil Phadraig and Holy Trinity NS (60 pupils) cycled in Westport town and along the Greenway.

Monday 15th June - Westport Schools Fun Lunchtime

Cycle