Lynbrook Primary School grade six students Manan and Adam encourage riding to school along with assistant principal Colin Avery.
By Sarah Schwager
RIDING or walking to school is the next step in battling the childhood obesity epidemic and Lynbrook Primary School is leading the charge.
Sport, Recreation and Youth Affairs Minister James Merlino has announced a new initiative to form part of Bicycle Victoria’s Ride2School program.
Under the initiative, 500 government primary schools across Victoria will each year receive two Malvern Star bicycles to give to grade six students who are exceptional student leaders and are committed to cycling and walking to school.
Lynbrook Primary School assistant principal Colin Avery said the school hoped to be one of the schools chosen after recently participating in the Ride2School program on 28 March along with 40,000 other students.
Mr Avery said there were concerns that children at the school were not doing enough exercise, with only about seven per cent walking or riding their bike to school, in a school of 450 students.
“You would expect an awful lot more children than that,” he said.
“We are concerned about children’s health and about obesity. If kids are not exercising it also affects their general wellbeing from a general health point of view and precludes them from certain sports.”
Mr Avery said there were also huge issues at the school with traffic and too many parents driving their kids to school.
“If we have more kids riding and walking that would also be a huge benefit for parents who really do need to drive their kids,” he said.
The school is located in the Lynbrook Estate and therefore is in a relatively safe area to ride and get to school.
Mr Avery said the new bikes would be very welcome as there were many children at the school who did not have a bike, mostly because their parents could not afford to buy them one.
Mr Merlino said the number of children walking or riding to school had dropped from 80 per cent to in the 1970s to around 20 per cent now.
Bicycle Victoria CEO Harry Barber said the initiative would reward students who had made a commitment to active travel and wanted to encourage others to do the same.
For more information contact Bicycle Victoria on 1800 616 600 or visit ride2school.com.au.
