Anyone's children done a Bikeability course?

[Hulababy]

Apparently there are free courses nationwide, including for families and individuals, and for all ages.

Has anyone done any? How old was your child and was it useful?

DD is 7y and can cycle but lacks confidence and stamina. But she is going on a school residential trip to Centre Parcs in May and they will be cycling then - so would like her more confident by then. However, like many 7y she responds to being taught by anyone other than mum!

[LIZS]

dc school offer a week's course in year 5 and 6.

[BigTillyMint]

DD did one in a half-term when she was in Y5. It was based from a park and they took them out on local roads to get used to cycling in traffic on the road, negotiating juctions, etc. It was very good, covered all sorts of road safety and etiquette and I would really recommend it. She actually started doing what we had been asking her to do when we all cycle together!

Is your DD doing a school-based one?
DS is in Y4 and is currently doing a school-based one, but he's only just started, so I don't know exactly what it covers.

It will definitely your DD confidence, but if you want to develop stamina, could you take her out regularly for longer rides?

We stayed in CP in Germany a couple of years ago. It is very safe for cycling!

[Hulababy]

Not sure if DD's school does a course - she is only in Y3 o sounds like it wouldn't be for a while anyway.

When the weather improves I will go out on the bike with her again. I even bought myself a bike for this purpose. But the weather has been so bad, and I have been ill for most of this year so far.

But we are so hilly round here, so it is not great for an unfit mum and a child who doesn't really have the interest to cycle far. She loves her scooter, but can take or leave her bike. But this may be confience I guess. Several of her friends seem similar.

Might email one of the local providers and see if they have anything suitable.

And once it gets lighter after school - get thse bikes out again!

[islandofsodor]

I think that Bikeability is the new name for the old Cycling Proficiency course. Many schools do it in Year 5/6.

[spudmasher]

My DD has done it and has really gained confidence on the road. I think is is a must...like learning to swim and the safety aspects of that.

[Patch66]

DD1 did this last year when she was in Year 6. Seemed to be a good course. It covered general bike skills, maneouvering, road safety and time on the road. DD enjoyed it.

[Twofigures]

I wonder if anyone else has been in this position. My 10-year old son took part in Level 1 and Level 2 bikeability training at his primary school last week. It was delivered through the local council. He "passed" Level 1 and came home from school on the second day in floods of tears having been told by the instructor he had "failed him at level 2". My son (and his friends who were in the group) reports that at no point was he told to stop any of the manouevres although quite a few of them had to do some manouevres a few times to get them right - as I would expect. He completed everything as every other child did, and was completely unaware that he might have failed. He is a confident cyclist and we cycle a lot as a family. At the end of the day the instructor pulled him out of assembly and said "I'm going to have to fail you. You weren't concentrating and you were doing your own thing". The feedback on the certificate said he wasn't concentrating. I am fully aware of his weaknesses in life and that is definitely one of them (maybe not unusual for a 10-year old boy), but school never report any behavioural problems or that he is in any way disruptive or a danger to himself or anyone else, but the instructor seemed to feel that he was. He was only one of 2 children in 45 who "failed" and we are feeling very confused. The comments on the certificate said that once he improves his concentration he should do fine (although he will not be allowed to resit it). He insists he was never spoken to about any behaviour and was doing the same as everyone else (lining up, taking his turn etc). We feel that he should not have been allowed to continue cycling on the roads if his behaviour was apparently so bad, and my understanding of Level 2 is that he shouldn't have been allowed to progress through the outcomes if he didn't successfully complete previous ones. We have a seriously upset and confused child and are at a loss to explain this to him. If it was something specific that he couldn't do, then we would be able to discuss this constructively with him, but this has left us high and dry. Can anyone give us any guidance/direction/know whether this is normal practice on this course which I thought was supposed to be more about training than pass or fail?

[JuliaScurr]

dd missed her school one (bike no good) so did a council one, 1 kid 'failed' level 2.
phone your council for advice. courses are free.

[titchy]

Errr I really wouldn't take this that seriously - it's only the bloody cycling proficiency, not an A Level! Just tell him that either the instructor didn't see him doing enough to be confident enough to pass him, or that sometimes adults make mistakes and this might have been one of those occassions.

Really don't make it into a big deal - your son will undoubtedly have more upsets in his life - he needs to learn to take such things in his stride, as hard a lesson as that may be at 10 yo.

He can still ride a bike and enjoys family bike rides yes? So not having the L2 shoudln't change that one jot.

[Twofigures]

Agree with you titchy and told him one badge made no difference whatsoever and made not a jot of difference to our confidence in him. Also did say exactly what you said about the instructor but feel that being pulled out of assembly to be told was pretty humiliating for him at 10 - most professional educationalists would say that there is no place for saying you've failed at that age (don't even fail A-levels now - you at least get an E!). More about process than outcome and just wondered if it was standard practice - this bikeability has replaced cycling proficiency and it is great that they do it on the roads not the playground but they maybe need to refine their feedback systems!

[titchy]

I suspect it depends on the particular instructor. Ds got his L2 bikeability certificate, but half the boxes had the 'Still needs to work on this' bit ticked. They were just handed out in class though not highlighted in assembly which seems a bit rubbish tbh.

BTW an E at A Levels is a pass grade - you can certainly fail if you get less marks than an E!

[Twofigures]

Think you're right re instructor. We have approached council and been told now that there were specific right turns that he struggled to do correctly - which is fine and would have been great to have been told the first time rather than that he was "doing his own thing"! Interesting re boxes on checklist - we didn't get anything like that and it might have shed some light first time round..

[rockinhippy]

DD did one via School in year 3, they then also had "Bike It" classes as an ASC for a few terms.

DD could ride her bike well enough, but after been off it a while due to an injury the course was a godsend to her confidence - it was even more of a godsend to teaching her road safety, how to safely use her bike etc - DH had done lots of trying to get her to listen on things such as how to correctly use her breaks etc butwe are her parents and our sole role in life is to nag at her and talk rubbish and we lie to her over safety etc she wouldn't listen to us - one lesson on this course had her confident again AND using her breaks properly

I'd highly recommend it, DD loved it & gained a lot from it

[Condover]

DS1 did a weeks course in yr 5 to cover levels 1-3. He failed level 3, but they came back the following week to do one more day after which he passed.

Twofigures, I agree it seems wrong if he was pulled out of assembly to tell him and he should have had proper feedback on what was wrong, but it's not wrong to fail him if he didn't pass. IMO too many badges are handed out just for turning up. The point of this course is to make them safe on the road, it would be wrong to tell you and him that he is if he's not. And you can most definitely fail an A-level

[Twofigures]

DH had long phone call from council guy in charge of bikeability scheme and have had formal apology plus free one to one tuition at our convenience with different tutor! Agreed that they have messed up and also that the course is not a pass or fail course (bikeability own criteria) but that the children should come away with any areas for development - which I totally agree with and would be quite happy with. Best result in the circumstances and shows it is worth taking these things up.. not for own child particularly but that others might not get the same treatment.

Rockinhippy - I agree and he loved it - til the end!

Condover - would be great if they got areas for development and then chance to do again but not an option here..

[DeWe]

Our schools do it in year 5 and 6.

We did the old cycling proficiency test in year 5 or year 6. You got an automatic fail if you forgot to look behind you before you manovered out. Instructor said "better a fail than a lorry". It did help you remember, I still find that when I go on a bike (very rare now) I always check behind. You also had to get a certain mark on a written test on the highway code.
About 1-2 children (out of a class of 30) failed a year. My sister failed for falling off the bike in the middle of the test.

[aliportico]

I think the person (people) doing the course have a lot to do with how successful it is - as with many things!

I organised a group of HE kids to do it with a guy called Paul Rode who was excellent - we had about 16 kids doing level 1, and he had a helper with him, and there were various parents around if needed. They all passed except my dd3 who had only finally learnt to ride a bike a couple of days earlier, lol!

8 of them did level 2 over the next 2 days, with Paul, his helper, and a couple of parent helpers out on the road. Only 5 passed, but he was encouraging to the other 3 and they could certainly have done the course again sometime if they wanted.

My friend whose kids also did it with mine lives almost opposite a primary school. A couple of weeks later they were doing their bikeability course - she said it was so sloppy compared to ours: kids making loads of dangerous mistakes and not being corrected, only having one go at things rather than several practices, etc, that she had to shut her curtains so she couldn't see it going on any longer!

So, whilst I think that any bike practice is probably good (especially if free or very cheap!), I wouldn't necessarily trust that a school-based bikeability course would actually equip a 10/11 year old to go out on the roads!

[daenerysstormborn]

dd has just done bikeability at school, just 4 sessions, no idea if she passed anything or not, we had no feedback at all.

[5madthings]

ds2 did this a few weeks ago, he passed level one and level two, was very chuffed with is badges and certificate and the instructor praised him and his ability to make good judgements on the road etc, but he cycles to school pretty much every day (half hr walk) and cycles a lot in general so none of what he did was new to him.

[aliportico]

ruby That's who I made the cheque out to :o

And no, I wasn't saying that the school factor made it inferior! I think my dd1 was at school by then anyway, I arranged it in the holidays so she could do the course too :-) More the not actually seeing what goes on on it. And also you can't take 30 kids out on the streets on one go, so it would require an awful lot of adult presence. I do think my kids had an excellent time, with some really good road experience, doable because there were 8 children and 4 adults. I paid £90 a child for it though.