4B.Assembly
/ 20- 30 minutes / / School Hall / / Whole school

Aim

-to introduce the concept of active travel to the whole school

-to encourage more pupils and teachers to take part (and change the journeys they make to school to sustainable journeys).

Key points to communicate

  • The school is taking part in ‘Smarter Journeys’ which works towards sustainable journeys to school.
  • The school hopes to reduce the number of cars coming to the school each day to ease congestion, which will make it safer for pupils to walk, cycle or scoot.
  • The school will be making travel pledges specific to your school. The project will benefit everyone involved within the school – pupils, staff, parents and local residents.
  • Every single person in the room can join in by either trying to walk, cycle or use sustainable transport where possible.
  • You may also want to mention that the lessons and activities will be contributing to the school’s Healthy and Eco-Schools programmes.
  • You could also invite parents if you want to get more external support for the project

Some assembly ideas:

You could use the presentation provided in section 3B (lessons) on the USB that comes with this toolkit (entitled ‘3B Why is active and sustainable travel important?’). You could encourage pupil involvement, by role play.

Example assembly

You will need:

  • 3-5 pupils to read about the type of transport they use to travel to school
  • 1 pupil to read the narration sentence
  • Cardboard signs (pupils can make these). Plain card with simple text ‘Car’ ‘Walk’ ‘Bike’ etc (use the modes of transport you choose to talk about).

Intro: Play a walking or cycling song as pupils come into assembly eg ‘I want to ride my Bicycle’ by Queen or ‘Walking on Sunshine’ Katrina and the Waves.

What is active travel? (Pupil-led) Choose between 3 and 5 pupils who travel to school using different methods: walking, cycling, scooting, walking bus, bus, car etc. Work with them to present the best things about that mode of transport and the worst things about that mode of transport. Here are some examples overleaf:

Type of transport / Positives / Negatives
Car – when picking a volunteer to present car travel, make sure you pick someone who doesn’t mind making car travel seem really bad. Perhaps they only travel by car occasionally (so that they don’t feel persecuted). You could use a teacher here instead. This goes down well with pupils. /
  • Don’t get wet in the rain
  • It’s quicker for people who live great distances from the school
/
  • Takes a long time because of congestion
  • Can cause more accidents – most dangerous mode of transport
  • Can make children scared to cross the road
  • Costs a lot of money
  • Bad for the environment

Cycling /
  • Quicker than a car
  • Free
  • Good for the environment
  • Good for health
/
  • Need waterproofs if it rains

Walking /
  • Great to keep fit
  • Can walk with friends
  • Free
  • Good for the environment
/
  • Not as quick as cycling

Other modes of travel can also be described

At the end of the presentations, ask 10 pupils to come up to the stage. Each pupil presenter holds up a sign saying ‘walking, cycling, car etc’ according to the method of travel they have just spoken about. Ask the volunteers to go to the sign that describes best how they get to school. Ask them to stand in their groups for a moment (you may want to have a sign saying ‘other’ for modes that aren’t covered, such as scooter/skate etc).

What can we do?

Ask a pupil who is leading the assembly to read the following extract:

“There are many ways to get to school, but we want to encourage ‘smarter journeys’ to school. This is where everyone in this room takes the smarter choice. Choose the option that is good for us as pupils. Walking and cycling are forms of sustainable transport, but travelling by car is not good for our health or the environment. We want safe roads, healthy children and a happy environment. If we care about the world and the people in it, let’s all help each other.”

Ask the audience to vote for which is best by cheering the loudest for the best form of transport (make sure car journeys are seen as negative before this section otherwise the point could be diffused). Each pupil presenter and their volunteers hold their sign up and ask the audience to cheer if they like that mode of transport. When you get to the ‘car’ you could ask the audience to ‘boo’ if they don’t like that mode of transport, rather than cheer.

Finish off by encouraging as many pupils to walk, cycle, scoot or travel to school sustainably, to help create ‘Smarter Journeys’ to your school.

Smarter Journeys to School Toolkit /