Tuesday 13 October 2015

Cycling short trips for educational visits in Lambeth

One of Lambeth's excellent primary schools has just tweeted about an educational visit some of their pupils have been on:

 Google estimates it takes about 15 minutes to walk from the school to the synagogue, or 5 minutes to cycle the 0.7 miles / 1.3 kms.
It would probably be no quicker to cycle than to walk this trip, given bike unlocking/locking time (by either mode I suspect it will take a primary school group longer than Google's estimate). However, having at least some of the pupils making some of these short trips by bike would be a good way to build more learning into the educational visit. By the time the pupils are in secondary school they could be cycling on school trips to the South Bank Centre or further afield.

As Lambeth aims to be the most cycle friendly borough in London, I'm looking for examples of educational trips that Lambeth school classes have made by cycle, or schools that would like to give it a go - maybe the council's sustainable travel team could arrange some marshals if needed. Travel to swimming lessons would seem to present an obvious opportunity.

Comments welcome below, or schools could ask their transport contact at the Council or cycle training provider for help.

Update
Here's an interesting example. I don't know how the pupils in their first year of secondary school made their way to Streatham Ice Skating Rink (assuming that's where they went). It's 21 minutes by foot; 8 on a bicycle on relatively quiet streets:



Update 2
Henry Cavendish Year 6 pupils went to the London Connected Learning Centre to day - a perfect 2 mile, half-hour opportunity for some related cycle journey learning (and a ride through Clapham Common)