St LaurenceChurchJuniorSchool
School Travel Plan
Bunbury Road
Northfield
Birmingham
B31 2DJ
Tel: (0121) 464 6499
Fax: (0121) 464 7393
LEA Number: 330 3307
Foreword
In recent years the number of children walking to nursery, primary and secondary schools has declined and there has been a steady increase in parental car use. Less walking and cycling are affecting children’s health and independence.
This travel plan looks at how children are currently travelling to and from the junior school and sets out a package of measures to encourage pupils to use more sustainable and healthy forms of transport to travel safely. The plan is a strategic document setting out actions and timescales which will be regularly reviewed.
The aim of this travel plan is to reduce the number of car trips to junior school and encourage more safe walking, safe cycling and safe use of public transport.
Contents
1. School profile
2. Transport problems
3. Transport survey results
4. Transport targets
5. Responsibilities for plan
6. Consultation involved
7. Monitoring and review
8. Signatures
- Profile
St Laurence Church Junior School has produced a School Travel Plan to help ease congestion outside the school gate, to encourage greater levels of walking amongst parents and their children, to make improvements outside the school gate and to make it safer for pupils on foot. The school are also aiming to achieve their Healthy Schools Status and are writing a School Travel Plan to link into these targets.
The school is a Voluntary Aided Church of England Junior School situated in a suburban area, seven mile south west of the city centre of Birmingham. It has 360 pupils on roll at the present time and pupils begin there after their seventh birthday and attend the school until they reach 11 years of age. Therefore the age group of children at this junior school is from 7 –11 year olds. Out of the 360 pupils registered at the junior school, no child is registered as having a disability which requires special transport needs.
Most of the junior school children live within 2 kms of the junior, which the Travel Survey (which pupils took part in) highlighted. Along with this, the survey also highlighted that parking in the area, especially along Innage Road and Bunbury Road is an issue and can lead to congestion.
St Laurence Church Junior School shares the site and pupil entrances with LaurenceChurchInfant School, giving a total of 630 children entering and leaving the site. The school is also close to the shopping district of Northfield, at the top end of Bunbury Road. The shopping centre itself doesn’t create congestion right outside the school but can impact on side streets close to the school. Also the Great Stone Road (within 100 metres of the school) is the link between the Pershore Road in Cotteridge and the Bristol Road leading to the M5 approximately three miles away. This road is very busy at all times of the day and there have been a significant number of traffic accidents close to the school gates. In addition Innage Road is used as a ‘rat run’ to avoid the Northfield Shopping Centre for cars travelling along the Bristol Road. It is also opposite St Laurence’s Church and the Great Stone public house, which can further create congestion at certain times of the day.
School Details
St Laurence Church Junior school employs around 50members of staff (with consists of both full and part time staff) including teaching staff, admin staff, cleaners and dinner supervisors. Out of the 50 members of staff, 75% will drive to the junior school each day with the remainder walking. A small number of staff occasionally arrive by bike or train to school but no one uses local buses.
The junior school does have a car park but it is small compared to the number of staff working at the school. Occasionally staff and visitors have to park on Innage Road or Bunbury Road.
St Laurence Church Junior School is aiming to renew achieve its Healthy Schools Status and is one of the main reasons for producing a School Travel Plan. The junior school are also heavily involved in cycle training, and have been for 16 years with approximately 500 year 6 children achieving the Cycle Sense Award. This year a shorter Cycle Awareness course has been introduced with year 5 with 50 of the 90 children in the year group having taken part.
The headteacher (Mr Andrew) is a keen cyclist himself and feels strongly in promoting cycling amongst children and their parents where it is safe and viable to do so. He feels it is important to provide the right training to pupils for when they cycle to secondary school.
School opening times and after school clubs
St Laurence Church Junior school day starts at 8:55 am and finishes at 3:15 pm. The junior school also has a Breakfast Club catering for up to 40 children from 7:45 am until 8:55 am. In September the school will have an After School Club catering for 32 children, operating between 3:15 pm and 5:45 pm. The school also has a partnership with the YMCA After School Club. Up to 30 children are collected from the junior school and are escorted by foot to the YMCA, approximately 200 metres away. Sports and music clubs also operate outside the school day, from 3:15 pm to 4:30 pm every day. Examples of these clubs include computer club, choir and orchestra, boys and girls’ football club, netball club, basket ball and cricket club. All these activity clubs take place at St Laurence Church Junior School but when the school plays in tournaments or against other schools; they travel by car the various locations. In addition the school also hosts district tournaments where up to 20 local schools travel by car to the site.
The junior school takes pupils out on various walks around the local area. The school will walk pupils to the local park (Victoria Common), the local library, the local centre of Northfield and to St Laurence’s church. Children also walk to Northfield station for when they make visits into the city centre. There they will visit the museums and places of interest. They will also visit the Lickey Hills country park by train. These walks however involve crossing the busyBunbury Road. Year 3 and 4 children also walk to Northfield swimming baths twice a week, but again children have to cross the busy Bunbury and Great Stone Roads on their journey. The school has an extensive visits programme predominately using coaches, for example the school would visit IronBridgeMuseum in Telford, GuliversLand in Milton Kenyes and Malvern and York for residential visits. The school doesn’t tend to use public buses however.
Other uses of the school building
The junior school is used on three evenings a week by uniformed community groups. For example the Brownies, Beavers and Scouts will use the school during the times of 6:00 pm – 9:00pm. It is occasionally used after school hours for other purposes, for example the PTA organises a number of well-attended functions and school governors meetings take place at least 15 times a year. Parent evenings take place three times a year together with headteacher meetings with various groups of parents. These usually take place between 7:00 pm and 9:00 pm. Productions, collection from clubs and evening concerts can also create much congestion outside the school.
School Travel Survey Results:
The Young Transnet Travel Survey, which was completed in May 2006, saw the majority of children walking to St Laurence Church Junior School with 54% stating this mode. The second highest mode was by car, with 44% stating this mode, followed by the bus with 2%. The results were similar for when children and their parents left the junior school at 3:00 pm but walking was slightly up by 3% and car use was down by 5%. No child at the school stated they cycled, used the train or car shared as a mode taken to or from school.
When junior pupils were asked what their preferred mode of travel to the school would be, the majority stated cycling with 53%. This was followed by walking with 27%, then using the car with 10%, using another mode not stated with 4%, using a school bus with 3% and using the train with 3%. These figures were also very similar for what pupils stated as their preferred mode when leaving the junior school. Cycling and walking is clearly the preferred mode of travel for pupils and this might be explained by the fact junior school pupils are living relatively close to the junior school. For example, the majority of children (36%) live between 0 - 1 km from the junior school. 37% live between 1 - 2 km from the junior school, 12% live between 2 - 3 km from the school and 15% live 3 km or further.
The Local Area and location:
The majority of the schools children are drawn from the Northfield Ward, which is an area of mixed housing. The ward has a third fewer adults who under took higher education than the national average. The factors which score in line or above the LEA average for deprivation are Living Environment and Crime and Disorder.
Most pupils are from White British backgrounds, with around 20% from other minority ethnic backgrounds and around 11% (40 pupils) are eligible for free school meals, which is below average for Birmingham.
Map showing St LaurenceChurchJuniorSchool
- Problems
A major issue for the school and its pupils are the way parent’s park on the zig zag lines on Bunbury Road and on Innage Road. By parents parking on the zig zag lines, they obscure the view of the School Crossing Patrol Warden along with children’s views of the road. When the Crossing Warden (Mrs Mann) has approached parents about the way they park, some have verbally abused her. This problem was raised by a large number of parents in the parent questionnaire completed in May and June 2006, where many parents expressed their disgust at the way other parents had verbally abused her when she had asked them to park elsewhere.
Another major transport concern to St Laurence Church Junior School is the sheer congestion outside the school entrances, which is not helped by the fact only has a small section of zig zag lines are witnessed long Innage Road. The Innage Road school entrance sees many children leave the school each day, therefore requiring much longer zig zag lines than present, to allow children to clearly see the road. At the moment, cars are often parked right outside the school entrance resulting in children finding it hard to see clearly when looking left and right before crossing. This concern is an issue raised by the Headteacher (Mr Andrew) and by the Deputy Head (Mrs Millington) and by over 40% of parents who completed a parent questionnaire during May and June 2006. One parent clearly expressed their concerns about this:
‘I witness many parents parking on the yellow keep clear area on Innage Road and on the pavement. This is happening daily and fining drivers for doing this would be a good idea’.
A number of other parents expressed:
‘Innage Road is very busy with cars dropping pupils off at the school entrance. This worries me greatly and the safety of all children around this entrance…. Restricted parking, ideally no parking or no stopping during congested times and allowing parking on one side of the road only would certainly help the situation’..
Adding to this issue, the school also has no guard rails in place outside its two entrances. Children are free to run into the road and this is something the school would like to see in place so children can walk to and from school safely. Guard rails could also solve the issue of parents parking on the pavements. This was a problem raised by school governors in recent meetings, raised by the headteacher in school newsletters and by parents in the questionnaire. One parent summed up the situation they regularly withness:
‘Cars regularly mount the pavements to park and to pass each other. . . . Pedestrians are often forced on to grass verges and gardens as there is no room to pass on the pavements’.
Installing guard rails or bollards through the Safer Routes to School Programme would help in stopping parents parking on the pavements and is something which the infant school next door also requested in their travel plan in 2005/06. Hopefully the infant school will be successful in obtaining these measures and in turn, have a major impact on the junior school.
Another issue of concern is Great Stone Road (within 100 metres of the school) which is the link between the Pershore Road in Cotteridge and the Bristol Road, leading to the M5. This road in itself is very busy at all times of the day and there have been a significant number of traffic accidents close to the school gates.
In addition Innage Road is used as a ‘rat run’ to avoid the Northfield Shopping Centre for cars travelling along the Bristol Road and Bunbury Road is extremely busy to cross. As children at the school walk to Northfield station for visits into the city centre and to Northfield Swimming Baths, they have to cross the busy Bunbury Road and Great Stone Road in order to get to these places. A Safer Routes to School Scheme might well be required outside the school to help children cross these roads with greater ease and safety. These concerns with regards to Innage Road, Bunbury Road and Great Stone Road were not only highlighted by the staff at the school in meetings, but also by parents. Many parents wanted traffic to be slowed down greatly along Innage Road with a 20 mph zone in place and over 30% of parents stated a number of junctions which should have a crossing in place.
‘A crossing in place for the Innage Road/Dinmore Avenue junction would help encourage many parents to walk their children to school’.
Another parent stressed:
‘The junction of Wychall Road, Norman Road and Woodlands Road is very dangerous and difficult to cross as there are many blind spots’.
Another issue of concern is increased congestion seen outside the junior school along Banbury Road and Innage Road. Parents who do drive their children to school will often park along this road further adding to congestion. Local facilities opposite the school, like St Laurence’s Church and the YMCA also generate traffic along with the residents who park on the roadside, so traffic can be heavy outside the school at certain times of the day.
‘Congestion is consistently witnessed at the entrances of the school. The sheer volume of traffic makes it very difficult to cross many roads safely on our way to school. Crossing points are certainly needed’.
These problems are not only highlighted by parents, of which 108 stressed in the parent questionnaire that they thought traffic outside the school is very or quite concerning, but also governors and staff at the school regularly witness the congestion and it is a regular issue which is raised at various school meetings. The graph below shows parents views of the situation outside the school gate:
Finally, the school would like to purchase cycle lockers for pupils as many pupils own a bike but sadly cannot cycle to school, as there are no facilities to store them. From the student travel survey, a high number of pupils owned a bike (309 out of 339) and around 53% stated they would like to cycle to school. The parent questionnaire also highlighted that many parents would like to cycle their children to school, if the correct infrastructure was in place (including cycle lanes and lockers at the school). Ten parents in the questionnaire expressed how cycle lockers could be a measure they would welcome.
‘Cycle lockers and racks are a great idea to encourage more of our children and parents to cycle to school’.
Therefore, if the school were to purchase cycle storage facilities with their grant funding, a modal shift to cycling could be witnessed. To support this, the school heavily focuses on cycle training and many pupils in year 5 and 6 complete the Cycle Awareness Training course, ready for when they go to secondary school.
3. Survey Results
The response rate to the Travel Survey, which was conducted in May 2006 by pupils, was 94%. A possible 360 pupils could have filled in the survey and 339 pupils completed the survey overall.