Transcript of
Bike It
Only one per cent of children at the moment in England are biking to school
when up to 50 per cent in hands-up surveys have said they would like to.
So we have come in to try and address this problem
and look to tackle the obstacles
that are preventing those children from biking in and biking in safely.
When you cycle you can do different games on your bike and it's fun.
And it's not only fun, it makes you healthy as well.
We work with staff, parents and children in a number of different schools
and our object is to develop a programme
of practical and fun activities and initiatives
that will encourage
and get kids thinking and wanting to ride into school.
I'm just going to tell them a few safety tips,
like the most important one, looking behind you
and keeping your hands on your brakes.
When you're cycling, keep your hands always on the brakes.
What's another important thing if you're cycling in traffic?
- What do you need to do? - (child) Be able to look round.
Yes, you need to be able to look behind you
and you need to be able to signal.
OK, why do we first look and then signal?
What would happen if we just signalled?
You have to look so the car can see you're in eye distance
and then put your hand out so the car notices you first.
Exactly.
We organise everything, from events like Bike To School days
and Ride To School weeks.
We do bike breakfasts, we do mechanic workshops,
all these kind of events.
Then in school we can do in-classroom activities
linking into the curriculum.
They're split into three groups.
One group is pretending they're sitting in the car, on a bench,
and one group is pretending to walk to school, walking around the hall,
and one group is pretending they're cycling to school, cycling around.
What they did beforehand is they measured their heart rate.
Afterwards we're going to measure their heart rate again
and ask them how they feel.
Riding our bikes actually give us our heartbeats.
When we ride our bike we take in oxygen
and our heart pumps and puts it around our body.
If we just sat in cars it won't actually do that
and because we're eating so much we'll get kind of obese
because your body's not pumping as much and you're becoming unfit,
but when you're riding it has to pump so your heart's keeping fit.
They've cycled to school, they've already had that snap,
ready to start the day, brains working,
so they're already arriving there,
rather than quite often they used to arrive
and you had to try and wake them up a bit more.
The school day didn't use to start till a bit later, really,
because you'd be spending half an hour getting them ready to learn.
I actually feel calmer and I work better in class
because I know I don't have to walk in the cold and the rain.
It's not moody.
It's like, "I can cycle, I feel active" when I come to school.
I love bikes so riding just makes me happy anyway.
It's suggested that the daily amount of physical activity
that children should be doing should be one hour a day.
And cycling to school can help fill that hour.
The other aspect of it which we can't ignore
is we're in a world where there's so much traffic.
I think for children to learn at as young an age as possible
that cycling is going to have
a positive impact on the environment and the world we live in
is really important.
And they don't get stuck in traffic either.
They don't have to wait for anything. They just get on their bike and go.