Top tips to make the Sustrans Giro Schools Challenge as successful as
possible
Expect lots of extra bikes and scooters
The Giro d’Italia is coming and getting lots of people inspired and active! We’re hoping that lots of
pupils get involved in the Sustrans Giro Challenge, so make sure you’re ready!
 Can the bike sheds fit the extra bikes and scooters? If not you could put a secure area aside
for them, such as the school gym. A very long chain can also be useful for locking all the
bikes up during the day.
 Use laminated signs to give each class/year group a designated area to park. This makes life
much easier when pupils come looking for their bike or scooter at the end of the day.
Extra activities get everyone excited
Running some other events during the Challenge maintains excitement and increases
cycling, scooting and walking. Try some of these ideas…
 See if a local bike shop will send over a mechanic to check bikes
 Have a breakfast day (or several) to reward those walking, cycling and scooting (tea and
coffee for mums and dads always goes down well)
 Organise an inter-class competition within your school so that the class with the most
cyclists/walkers/scooterists each week (or even each day) gets a prize or reward. It's
important that everyone in the class gets the prize, not just those who can walk/cycle/scoot
 Free (or very cheap) prizes are just as popular e.g. cycling playtime, house points, free
homework passes, early lunch pass, sweet/healthy treat, stickers, golden time, house/class
merits
 Have an event at the start of the Challenge (an active travel breakfast is ideal, but it could
just be being allowed to ride bikes and scooters at break and lunch). Once children have
ridden for one day, they are more likely to keep it up
 Download our Suss it out activity sheets (http://tinyurl.com/sussitout) for 10, 20 or
30-minute fun activities based on healthy, active journeys… no special preparation or
resources required!
GO PINK
Pink is the official colour of the Giro d’Italia, and we’re encouraging everyone to wear something
pink on the 11th April to celebrate the Giro coming to Ireland! This is a great way to get everyone in
the school involved.
There are also other exciting opportunities provided by Sport NI’s Activ8 and the Department for
Regional Developments’ Cycling Unit (Travelwise) for schools across Northern Ireland to Get Inspired
and Get Active. For more information go to www.activ8ni.net and www.nidirect.gov.uk/travelwiseni.
Don’t forget the prizes
We’ve got lots of amazing prizes up for grabs for the winning schools!
Schools are divided into three categories: small primaries (150 pupils and
under), large primaries (over 150 pupils), and post-primary schools. In each
category there will be a winning school with the most journeys by foot, bike and scooter, and a
winning school with the most cycle journeys, as well as other prizes over the 10 days of the
Challenge. This means there are lots of opportunities for all sizes of school to win prizes and do well.
The best cycling school and the best active travel school in all three categories (small primary, large
primary and post primary) will receive an awesome RampRage experience from T13, with a Flatland
BMX demo featuring one of the top 3 athletes in Ireland as well as each pupil receiving a £6 Free
Session voucher for the T13 Urban Sports Academy.
Other prizes include:
 A class trip to Titanic Belfast,
 Dr Bike Sessions,
 Class set of Hi Vis Jackets with exclusive Giro branding
 Bikes
 Goody bags
Make collecting and entering journeys easy – and fun
Collecting and entering your bike, scooter and walking trips can actually be fun for the pupils, a great
classroom exercise and will help publicise your efforts…
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Find a school cycling champion. Nominate someone who can be responsible for ensuring
everyone has collected the daily figures on who walked, cycled and scooted
The champion can also make sure figures are entered onto the website before the 2pm
deadline on the following day
Let someone else know the login details and instructions just in case the champion is away,
ill or just very busy at any point during the event
Include the pupils! Set up a responsible, enthusiastic active travel crew in advance. Train
them up and ask them to collect the data from each class on a daily basis, and enter it onto
the system
The active travel crew can also report back on the winning class in assemblies each
week/day. This will save you time and will help the pupils feel like they’re part of something
big
Use the curriculum! Recording data is a great hands-on way to teach numeracy.
To make it easier to enter the information you can collect all the class record sheets
together and then enter the counts in one go.
Your efforts could help towards existing programmes like Healthy Schools or Eco-Schools
Tell teachers when the bike/scooter/walking counts are being logged online so they can get
the Sustrans Giro Schools Challenge website up on the whiteboard and show classes the
total journey count going up
The little things that make a BIG difference
Here are a few things that could give you the edge…
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Does two weeks sound too much? Why not just take part in the 1 or 2
challenge days
It’s not always possible for everyone to cycle, scoot or walk to school, so acknowledge the
children who can’t take part. This could be through lessons and activities in school, such as
cycle skills, films, breakfasts for everyone, be imaginative!
See if there's a car park nearby such as at a supermarket, church or community hall – then
those with long journeys can park then walk, cycle or scoot the rest of the way to school
Schools can compete with neighbouring schools to encourage some local competition. You
can view other participating schools on the map on the Sustrans Giro Schools Challenge
website, so even if you don’t win a national prize you could still say you were top dog in your
area.