Daylighted Day Campaign November 2014
On Friday 24th of October the “Daylighted Campaign” was be celebrated throughout
schools Mayo by making Mayo the Brightest County in Ireland!
The aim of the campaign was to encourage cyclists and pedestrians to wear
luminous and reflective clothing and use lights when commuting to school, work or
for leisure. The campaign also reminded drivers use their dipped headlights and to
slow down and watch out for pedestrians and cyclists, particularly around schools,
homes and shops.
Pupils in schools were encouraged to dress up wearing crazily bright clothes or fancy
dress and illuminate their walk or cycle to school.
Westport Smarter Travel celebrated the day by giving prizes to schools with the best
“Daylighted Fancy Dress”competition. Sir Walk-a-Lot visited each school and each
winner won a Halloween Bike Buffet ticket which took place on Monday the 27 th of
October. The event was a great success with all schools making a special effort to
take part. The day ended with a fashion show extravaganza in Scoil Padraig where
senior pupils showcased their excellent costumes. Sir Walk-a-Lot had a very difficult
task in choosing the winners!
Winners from Scoil Padraig, Laura Galvin, Caitriona Sweeney (Teacher and Green-School Coordinator),
Julia Sztejner, Sir Walk-A-Lot, Dylan Mulroy (Overall Winner) and Mary Timlin (Teacher)
Winners from Holy Trinity NS, Elenor O’Toole (Overall Winner) Amber Erskine Hadden, Sir Walk-A-Lot,
Matthew Cleary and Ivan Fair.
The overall Winner from St Colmcille’s
NS was Laoise Geraghty first on left
displaying her Halloween Bike Buffet
ticket.
Winners from Gaelscoil Na Cruaiche were Oscar
Breathnach, Kelsey Ni Mhaolrua (Overall Winner),
Aoife Standún and Saul Mac Carthaigh with Sir
Walk-A-Lot.
Scoil Padraig’s Daylighted
Day
Fashion Show Extravaganza
Pupils from Scoil Padraig who participated in their Daylighted Day fashion show and competition
Westport’s Christmas Walk to
School Day 2014
Well done to all the pupils in Westport
who walked, cycled, Park’N’Strided,
scooted and carpooled to school on
Wednesday 17th of December. Schools
celebrated a special Christmas Walk to
School morning and pupils wore Santa hats
and dressed Christmassy. The Westport
Smarter Travel mascot “Sir Walk A Lot” and
his special Christmas elves visited Scoil
Padráig and wished all pupils, staff and
parents a Happy Christmas and gave out
stickers. A special presentation was made by Sir Walk A Lot to Principal Mr. Stiofán O
Móráin for all his support and promotion of Westport Smarter Travel throughout the years.
Westport Smarter Travel wish to say a big thank you to all the staff, pupils and parents for
making 2014 a great year for smarter travel in Westport schools. There has been a 10%
reduction in the number of students travelling to school by car since 2012 and an increase in
walking, cycling and Park n’ Stride. We hope that 2015 will be our best year yet!!
Sacred Heart School Gate Analysis—3rd December 2014
Twelve Fifth Year students Katie Noonan, Lisa Murray, Rebecca
Sammon, Shauna Sammon, Leary Brazel, Shona Moran, Grace
Reid, Celine O Donnell, Katie Noonan , Shauna Sammon, Sarah
Murphy and Rebecca Sammon examined traffic through
the main gate, back entrance to school, drop offs at
distillery road, pick-ups at Top Oil station and Mill Road.
2 surveys completed - 8.40am to 9.00am and 3.30pm to
4.55pm
2014
2013
8.40am to 9.00am
8.30am to 9.00am
Cars (drove through main gate)
11
21
Bus (parked outside school
gates)
2
(38 students
disembarked)
8
(120 students
disembarked)
Cars drop off outside school gate 29
42
Walkers at back entrance
70
28
- 11 dropped by car
- 6 walked
- 8 ParkNStrided
Staff cars
30
36
Cars who drop off at Distillery Rd 36
Cars who drop off across the
road from school gates
10
1 bus
Passing traffic
480
9 busses
We recommend cars could use the various Park’N’Stride
locations around Westport. In the evening, 58 cars & 7 buses
pick up students at the Top Oil station and 20 cars pick up at
Mill Road instead of going to the main school entrance. We hope
to increase walkers and cyclists to school in 2015 by running
competitions, offering free lunches and launching the Greenest
Class Competition.
Rice College School Gate Analysis—5th December 2014
The Smarter Travel Committee Students from Transition Year – Maciek Baszynsk, Eoin
Conway, Séan McGuire, Andrew Gannon & Shane McLoughlin
examined traffic passing through the main gate and the Greenway
entrance to school. Eva Mcintyre from Westport Smarter Travel
assisted with the survey. The results are in the below table:
Rice College School Gate Analysis December 2013
December 2014
Cars (drove through main gate)
134
102
Bus (drop off Knockranny road )
11
9
Bike
2
0
Walkers through main gate
45
13
Cars drop offs at Knockranny Rd
15
29
Car drop offs at Fr Angela’s Park
7
12
Greenway Entrance
16 walk from home
5 walk from home
2 cyclists
0 cyclists
7 Park’N’Stride
7 Park’N’Stride
Staff Cars
38
40
In order to ease congestion in Westport, in the school & outside the school gates, cars could use the various
Park’N’Stride locations around Westport. The committee highlighted that 102 cars driving through the main
gate was very high. The Greenway entrance and the new pedestrian crossing on the Castlebar Road now
enables walkers & cyclists to travel to school on a safe route. The committee will be involved in numerous
initiatives, competitions and introduce incentives in 2016 to try and increase walking and cycling and reduce
the private car travelling to Rice College.
We Love Westport Smarter Travel Week 2015 – Photo Competition
We Love WST Week took place form 9th to 13th of February 2015. This
week promoted school children to get back out walking, cycling and
Park’N’Striding to school for 2015. To link in with St. Valentine’s Day
schools entered Westport Smarter Travel’s Photo Competition. This
competition was titled “I Love My Journey to School”. Pupils were asked
to take any photos about their own journey to school and what they love
about it. Photos could be of people, scenery, nature or anything they love
about their journey. All photos were excellent and the judges had a really
difficult task in choosing the winners. The winners in each school were
presented with their prizes by the WST Mascot Sir Walkalot with help
from Eva McIntyre and members of the Sacred Heart Schools Smarter
Travel Committee Rebecca, Sarah and Katie.
The winning photos on display and Sir Walk a Lot presenting the photos to the winners in each primary
school. “We Love Our Journey to School” Photo Competition
Supersmart Mover Competition Winners 2015
The Sacred Heart School for organised a very successful
Supersmart Mover Competition. The competition was launched
in February and students began tracking their smarter travel
journeys in March and April 2015. Each student got a special log
card and recorded how they travelled over a 2 week period e.g.
they would tick “W” for walk. Each tick represented a walk to
and from school. Once 10 journeys to and from school were
complete they completed their logcards and in return got a
voucher for hot chocolate from Marlene’s Cafe. Overall 116
cards were completed which represents 1180 smarter travel
journeys to school & from school. This can be broken down into
670 walking journeys, 310 Park’N’Stide journeys, 30 bike
journeys and 170 carpool journeys were made to & from
school. Over 61 pupils from 1st to 3rd year participated in the
initiative. The overall winner was Ariadna Gormaz Kelly from 1B,
who completed 4 filled logcards, which equals 80 walking
journeys to and from school. The runner up was Caoimhe O
Rourke from 2A. Due to its success the initiative will return in
September whereby every year group will be encouraged to participate. Here are some of the
comments from students who participated in the initiative:
Chloe Staunton – “Walking clears your head before and after school”
Mia van Rens – “I liked the fresh air in the morning before school. It woke me up!”
Sarah McKenna – “Carpooling is better for the environment and I liked meeting my friend before
school”.
Principal Brendan McHugh, Ariadna Gormaz Kelly (Winner Supersmart Mover
Competition), Caoimhe O’Rourke (Runner Up Supersmart Mover Competition) and Eva McIntyre Westport
Smarter Travel.
Launch of the Sacred Heart Schools Supersmart Mover Competition 2015
As part of the Supersmart Mover Competition all participants completed pledge colour cards. Each
student wrote their Smarter Travel pledge and it was posted on to a board and displayed throughout
the school. Teams of Transition Years got pupils to sign registration forms, complete pledges on
colourful post-its and then students received their special WST pledge wristbands. The colourful
pledge-boards will be displayed throughout the school.
Left to right – Transition years with their completed pledge board and registration forms, TYs showing their
pledge wristbands and pledge-boards, Chloe from Third Year making her WST pledge, students busy
registering for the competition.
Primary School Smartest Travel Class Initiative 2015
In 2015 the WST Smartest Travel class was launched in 2015. This
initiative allows all schools to promote smarter travel modes and
monitors travel patterns. Every class in each school is monitored once
a week on how they travel to school – the class with the most
sustainable travel modes will be awarded the special WST trophy for
their classroom for that week or month. Is initiative is similar to the
Green-School Travel programme’s Golden Boot and Golden Bike
Initiative. This will be rolled out every year.
Heavy School Bags
Book Free Homework
One of the main barriers to secondary students walking or cycling to
school is the issue of very heavy school bags. In order to try and
alleviate this, Westport Smarter Travel negotiated with school staff to
hold regular Book Free Homework Days. Although it is unrealistic to
hold Book Free Homework everyday (due to subjects, exams and the
intensive curriculum in secondary schools) it allows schools the
opportunity to walk, cycle and Park’N’Stride on various days.
Feedback has been very positive from the schools with this initiative.
It requires a great Smarter Travel Coordinator teacher in the school
who can communicate easily with staff colleges. The days are
promoted using posters and announcements by the Smarter Travel
School Committee on the intercoms.
Pannier Rental Scheme
In order to help students in secondary schools to cycle to school with heavy bags Westport Smarter
Travel holds a pannier rental scheme. For 10 euro students can rent the panniers for one school
year. This is a great initiative as panniers can be quite expensive e.g. 60 euro plus. It is hoped to roll
out the scheme to the Sacred Heart School and Rice College in September.
The Sacred Heart School Greenest Class
Competition 2015
Class 2A were the overall winners of the
Greenest Travel Class 2015. The students
made a huge effort to travel to school in a
sustainable manner. Lots of girls cycled to
school – 4 even cycled from Newport which
is 8 miles from Westport! The class not only
promoted sustainable travel, they also kept
their classroom litter free, recycled bins
were in order and they saved lots of energy
by not wasting electricity and heat. MS
Doherty the Green-School Coordinator did
spot checks once a week on all the
classrooms every week. The girls went on a
daytrip to Clare Island for winning the competition.
Each classroom filled in the above table. The Smartest Travel Class Committee administered the competition
and randomly assessed each class every week.
Westport Walking “Carbon Buster” Bus Initiative 2015
WOW! There was plenty of sunshine and smiles on the morning of the 13th of May in Westport!
Over 250 pupils took part in 2 giant "Carbon Busting" walking buses along the greenways to St.
Colmcille's NS and Scoil Phadraig. The schools celebrated National WOW (Walk On Wednesday) Day.
It was a really fun morning and an excellent achievement to all who took part. Lots of parents, pupils
and teachers joined in the walking buses to school. The buses were full of colour with especially
made banners, balloons and coloured hi vis vests. Some fun characters like Micky Mouse, Scooby
Doo and the Westport Smarter Travel mascot Sir Walk-a-Lot were great company during the
morning stroll. Each bus had a special driver and conductor to make sure the journeys ran
smoothly."The event was a great success, lots of children and parents loved taking part in the
walking buses and look forward to lots more walking on our greenways and streets to school" - Eva
McIntyre Westport Smarter Travel. “The walking bus was a brilliant idea and the sun was shining!” Margaret Kennedy a parent from St Colmcille’s NS.
Quay NS
On Friday 12th of June over 70 pupils competed a cycle skills day with Eva McIntyre. Also all these
pupils cycled to school and continued to do so until the summer holidays. The school will be
undergoing works during the summer to improve access for walkers and cyclists on the school
grounds.
Bike Week 2015
On Monday 15th of June Scoil Phadraig and Holy Trinity NS (60 pupils) cycled in Westport town and
along the Greenway.
Monday 15th June - Westport Schools Fun Lunchtime
Cycle