Extra play time for ‘active travellers’

[microkneesya]

We lived 2.5 miles from school. Moved mid-school year a few years ago because of being deployed by work nearby. Council allocated places and there was nothing closer with the year groups we needed. We love the school. After drop off I then have to go onward in the car to park & ride as I can’t wfh so it’s about more than the school run.

They have started awarding active travellers (children who come to school on foot, bike or scooter) extra playtime on Fridays. My DC are so upset and beg to be allowed to walk but we just can’t. I feel like the school shouldn’t do such a demonstrable ‘reward’ when for some families it’s not so easy.

Do your schools do this? Worth approaching the school?

Innit.

Sometimes tough shit is tough shit 🤷‍♀️

This.
Sometimes you just can't access some things. All sorts of reasons for all sorts of different situations. You just remind your dc that, due to you needing to get to work, you can't park further away and work, but due to the fact you work, it does mean that they get to..... {insert something you can afford because you work which you couldn't if you didn't, that they enjoy - be that holidays, having own bedroom, Cub camps, lessons or activities they enjoy}. Would they rather have a sticker / certificate, or that weekend away ?

Sounds like a bloody stupid idea and more work for the school i can't see it lasting all that long...

But meh, take a half day or day off... get all yours to school on foot, see if they really think its worth the effort and I think you'll find they don't (be best if you could pick a horrible rainy day too!)

Yes, good shout @WiddlinDiddlin - I can't imagine that a "drama queen" 4yo is going to be up for a 2.5 mile walk at 7 a.m. (and then home again at 6 p.m. after a full day at school and wraparound). Suspect OP would only have to do it once!

Our local schools all do similar. For those needing to use cars they simply ask parents to park a couple of streets away from school so children are walking/scooting for a few mins.

drive some of the distance - park up - walk the remainder - arrive on foot - tell your children your 'walking the same distance as others and if asked say they walk'.. you do walk

I live next to a school and I wish they would do something that would insentivise the inconsiderate cunts who park badly all over my (private) road morning and night, block me in and stop me getting out to work, to park 5 minutes away. Even if they parked 2 minutes away they would presumably be spread out enough not to be entirely blocking the roads. Also means my DS has to dodge idiots trying to get in and out of not parking spaces on his way to and from school.

(Although I agree really, DS doesn't deserve a reward for walking the minute to school- I just would like other people not to attempt to run him over every day)

It is cruel and nasty to punish a child because of the needs or choices of the parents. Its one thing to encourage not using cars. But this is batshit.

You’re not one of those people who absolutely can’t park a few minutes’ walk away, and has to park right next to the school gates, and then sits in a 20 minute queue of road rage parents trying to get as close to the school as possible while the people who parked a couple of streets away stroll past them, are you? I can guarantee you that the school are just trying to encourage healthy behaviours in the kids and will accept walking some of the way as good enough. And if you aren’t able to manage that, or put a greater premium on parking next to the school gates, then unfortunately you don’t get the same rewards as the ones who do organise themselves enough to walk the last few hundred metres.

My kids school used to let them count as "walking to school" if we parked further away and walked the last bit. We live 5+ miles from the school, so walking the whole way would have been tricky!

This is about as fair as those 100% attendance awards are to children with long-term health issues or disabilities. They can never win.

This.
Let's say worst case scenario, the op is a parent who has fuck all interest in the planet or her kids general health and despite a million easy options decides to drove 200m to school (not saying you are this way op)

Start the fuck good does it do to tell the kids, by the way your parent is a fuck up or by the way you deserve less because of something you had no say in. Stupid system.

I really my kid to school every day and I sing judge the parents sitting in traffic, I'm just fucking lucky the way the local school lines are drawn

I live 10 mins walk from school at child pace. It takes at least 8 mins to drive, park and get to school and often longer so obviously mine walk! Two families love within 2 mins walk from me who both drive. They're the sort of people that this would make a difference to so I'm not totally anti it!

Genius!

If you don't have to leave until 7.30, I'd just leave 10 minutes earlier so you can scoot for 5 min there with them.

Incidentally, does your reception DC not have free flow to the outside? That's standard in the schools round here and Y1 have it every afternoon too.

The problem is if it’s raised (and I see OP says she won’t now) the school will either not change anything or stop the whole thing. They’re not just going to give everyone extra playtime. And to be honest if I had an older kid in the school I wouldn’t want them having extra playtime. 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is why the whole "green" agenda is a corrosive and vile movement.

It's propaganda in Its most abusive form.

Is there a definition of "active"?

A prescribed distance?

A list of approved scooters or bikes?

Is an "ebike" classified the same as a Sauron?

If the school cannot provide a descriptive and prescriptive list you can claim discrimination and bullying.

Also is it just if you walk to school on Fridays? Or every day? We drove to and from school yesterday as I was going on somewhere else but I’d say 95% of the time we walk. It’s a stupid rule!

One family who live about 20 houses away from school, drive to school every day for some reason (the parents (yes both of them) then drive home straight away, I know as I see them parking up when I walk home. By the time you’ve parked, driving saves zero time when you live 20 houses away). So maybe their kids would badger them to walk if there was extra playtime at stake. But the vast majority of people who drive will be in OP’s shoes instead and why should those children miss out because their parents, for good reason, can’t afford the time to walk?

Oh what a horrible idea to try and encourage people to give up the car , improve their health, manage their weight , reduce the number of people dying from preventable lung problems , reducing climate change and so helping ensure food and water supply for the children , help prevent losing major cities to the sea , reduce future war risk
Shocking indeed

If you speak to the school, it will probably turn out that parking a 5 min walk away and scooting/walking the rest of the way counts as ‘active travel’.

just don’t drive all the way to school.

One of the benefits for the school of designing their ‘active travel’ incentives to include people walking part of the way is that they can also reduce the traffic and parking issues outside the school each morning.

This isn’t like attendance awards because, unlike illness, it is in most people’s control to plan their journey in a way that includes a bit more walking. Getting off the bus a stop early and walking a bit further. Parking several streets away and walking. These are things that many families can figure out.

So it’s ok to reward children for something over which they generally have absolutely no control….which is where they live and parental employment….I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous from a school and would be creating merry fuck with them!

My work pattern is the opposite issue….I work shifts, finishing at 2 or 3am….it was bad and hard enough having to be up with the kids at 7, so no, “leaving 5 minutes earlier” wouldn’t have been possible for me and anyone in my position.

Why should my kids have lost out?

Absolutely hate the politicising of children, because that’s what it is, and it will be a short term fad till the next fad comes along

None of those things will be prevented or solved by walking half a mile to school.

The whole of the UK could sink into the sea tomorrow and it wouldn't make any difference to "Climate Change".

This is just bullying and manipulation by school staff on an Ego trip. But in this case they are using children.

The casual psychological abuse of the children that are supposed to care for is the problem.

In my school the incentive has been pushed primarily because two children have been hit by parents in cars and there have been countless near misses.

We're in a typical ex-mining town with a school in the middle of rows of terraced houses with barely any footpaths, tiny roads with residents double parked, and space for about 4 cars to pull up outside despite having 400+ pupils.