Children and families from schools across Bath celebrated Clean Air Day on Thursday 15th June. The day’s celebrations, including community walking buses, free breakfasts, shoe decorating, sign making and street games, provided an opportunity for more children to walk to school with their friends and play out safely in the street.
Among the activities, families organised a community walk to school between Oldfield Park Infants and Oldfield Park Junior schools.
“So many children in Oldfield Park enjoy walking to school already, and it was great to celebrate how brilliant that is for keeping our air cleaner and streets safer,” said Alice Boden, a parent at OPJS and co-founder of local community action group Families Acting on Climate Emergency (FACE).
“We hoped that by running a community walk to school, we could encourage parents to connect with others so that more children can walk with friends. We understand that families can be on a tight schedule or live further away. Sharing the walk to school between families can really help busy parents to avoid driving kids to school.
“If families can’t avoid driving, we’ve been encouraging parents to park at least five minutes’ walk away from school so that the areas outside our schools are safer for all the children”.
St Andrew’s Church School families organised three walking buses, on different routes to school, which brought together more than 60 children and adults. Parents and carers who were in a walking bus for the first time thought it was a lovely idea and a positive experience, and the children really enjoyed walking together.
The highlight of the day was the ‘Special Shoes’ competition organised by the school’s Green Team. All children were encouraged to decorate/wear their special walking shoes to school – and the winners received a pair of colourful rainbow laces.
St Andrew’s Church School has always encouraged active travel, not only because it helps to tackle climate change and improves air quality, but also because it has a positive impact on everyone’s health and wellbeing. Celebrating Clean Air Day just gives us an opportunity to reinforce the message.
Mrs Jayne, Headteacher at St Andrew’s, said, “Another amazing Clean Air Day demonstrating our commitment to do our part in tackling climate change. The walking bus was such a positive way to bring families together to enjoy the walk to school. Thank you to our Green Team for being amazing role models!”
Outside St Stephen’s Church Primary School, parents and children handed out pastries and fruit to thank families for leaving their cars at home or parking away from the school gates. In recent years, there has been a marked increase in St Stephen’s families walking, cycling and using the school community walking buses. In the absence of cars parked near the gates, and with lots of parents around for Clean Air Day celebrations, children were able to play out in the street before school.
Liz Rees, parent and Active Travel Lead at St Stephen’s Primary school, said, “The children have said they wish their walk to school could be this much fun every day! One way we can make their walk to school safer and more fun every day is with a School Street – there’s a growing demand for School Streets amongst school communities across Bath.”
School Streets are systems where roads immediately outside schools are closed by volunteers for a short time at drop off and pick up times, to allow children to get into school safely and away from traffic fumes.
Clean Air Day is the UK’s largest air pollution campaign, organised by Global Action Plan. The theme this year is ‘Clean up the air to look after your mind.’ According to Global Action Plan, air pollution is the biggest environmental health risk, causing 36,000 deaths each year in the UK. Among the points the plan is keen to promote are –
- Cleaning up our air is good for us in many ways: it not only benefits our physical health and the environment but can also protect our mental and brain health.
- Air pollution affects you from your first breath to your last, as the damage to our health can start in the womb and carry on through into old age.
- Exposure to high levels of air pollution can cause a range of health impacts, including damaging lung function, triggering asthma, increasing blood pressure, and increasing lung and heart-related hospital admissions and deaths.
For further information and contacts:
Global Action Plan: https://www.actionforcleanair.org.uk/campaigns/clean-air-day