HOLY Cross Primary pupils had a wheely speedy start to their Thursday after winning the chance to have a free scooter session.

The activity is aimed at educating the 50 youngsters on having fun with their scooters while being aware of potential dangers on the road.

The children won the opportunity after entering a competition last month where they had to design their own scooter, either by making a poster, painting or drawing a picture, using clay, playdough or plasticine or even making a model scooter out of junk modelling.

After whittling down 70 entries, teacher Laura Evans said she was very impressed by the effort put in by pupils.

“We decided to organise the competition to encourage the children to think about how they can travel to school because we want to reduce the use of cars around our main site, which gets very busy,” she said.

“The session aimed to educate the pupils on how to approach crossings, how to stop and control a scooter as well as alerting them to other hazards on the road. I think they liked it when Sharon taught them a few tricks as well. The pupils really enjoyed it and had great fun.”

The session was hosted by Sharon Pickford from PWLC Projects, which promotes better places to live, work and play through improved public realm and smarter travel.

The idea behind the competition to take part came from the school’s travel ambassadors – a group of pupils who try to think of child-friendly ways of inspiring pupils, staff and parents to choose two wheels for their journey to school.

Laura, who is the travel lead at the school, added that the scooter session is just one way the school is striving to improve travel links.

“We are holding events in the next few weeks to continue the work we have already done and next week we are putting on a show which will be teaching the children about road safety with puppets and musical theatre,” she added.

“We have other ways of encouraging both parents and pupils to walk to school and we have a walking bus from the County Ground. We also have five minute walking signs where we have agreed with Burger King that parents can park there and cross the road rather than congest the area.

“It is the first time we have run the scooter competition but because it was such a success, we will definitely think about holding it again next year.”

Holy Cross will soon be taking part in the Big Pedal competition to help them achieve a Silver Accreditation with the Modeshift STARS organisation.