Hillside First School in Verwood awarded bronze for ditching cars

Hillside has been working with the Sustrans to encourage as many of its pupils as possible to ditch the car to school in favour of a more active way journey and the bronze award was presented to the headteacher, Mr Jeremy Harrison and chair of governors, Mr Ben Mason, at the school last week by the charity’s representative Rachel Alcock-Hodgson.

Throughout the year children have taken part in various activities, including winning a scooter pod for being one of the schools to bring in the most scooter/ bikes in one day.

Other activities include two bike clubs, run by Mr Harrison and Year 1 teacher Mrs Daw, focusing on ditching the stabilisers for younger children and basic skills for the older children. Year 3 wrote a biking manifesto, whilst the school also had a scooter day, where children played games, had a piece of bike cake and bike biscuits. The children were fascinated by a visit from the Smoothie Bike, which created great smoothies by using their own pedal power to run a smoothie maker.

To get ready for the darker winter days the children were invited to Blinging Your Ride again and a competition for the best entries resulted in Georgia, Sophie, Evelyn and Olivia each winning a goodie bag. Great use was made of foil, lights, tinsel and reflective and neon materials.