Thanks to the feedback from the Mount Lockyer Primary School community, combined with some great information that we gathered from our mapping project (see previous story!) and some good timing in terms of recent funding announcements...a small but significant missing path link near the school is about to be constructed by the City of Albany. This section of path will link up a relatively new section of dual use path that goes through a big residential area (where a large proportion of the school's students live) with another section of path that leads up to the warden crossing opposite the school. Works are due to start later this month (weather permitting) so stay tuned for a grand opening!

A big idea that's been bubbling away at Mount Lockyer Primary is now coming to the boil! A combination of factors - including feedback from parent surveys, ad-hoc reports from the school community about footpaths, and the work that was done a couple of years ago to create our school Park + Walk/Ride map - led us to the conclusion that what would be really useful would be a great big map where we could plot all the places where our school community live. This would be able to tell us how many students live within 1km/5km or further afield, where the main flows of students are (or could be) for walking and riding to school, and what the possibilities are to increase bus travel. So much to gain from one project!

The school administration have provided a list of de-identified addresses, which have been entered into a spreadsheet and sorted by suburb. Ms Claughton's Year 5's are now getting stuck into the nuts and bolts, and are using the list of addresses and Google maps to put stickers on the map. It's so exciting to see the project progressing, and we can't wait to share it when it's complete.

It's been a while - but TravelSmart Tuesdays are finally back! It was a very wintry day, but it's great to be able to recognise the students who use active transport in any weather. Two lucky students received a Your Move water bottle and umbrella, which was a very appropriate reward! Fingers crossed for some sunshine for our next event in Week 8.

As this crazy term comes to a close and some certainty returns, we've finally had a chance to do some planning for the rest of the year - and there's some great stuff coming up! We'll be able to restart our regular TravelSmart Tuesdays in Term 3, and will be working with our Year 6's to plan an active transport transition to high school. Beyond that, Term 4 is also looking like a cracker with some Bike Ed sessions planned and linking in with the incoming kindy and PP parents to promote our active transport message. Alongside all this, we'll be on the lookout for some parents/family members who are keen to come on board and get involved in our active transport initiatives.

We've also had some really positive news from our Term 2 Hands Up survey, which we conducted earlier in the term. As well as tracking our overall progress, we have looked specifically at the Year 5/6 cohort over the last couple of years. In Term 1, this group cracked the 50% mark for AT - and in Term 2 they went even higher to 52%. This is such great news and shows that with growing independence we can really see the uptake of active transport. Onward and upward!

It's time to get things moving again at Mount Lockyer Primary School, starting off with a refresh of the active transport message in this week's school newsletter. The changes to the drop off and pick up routine are a great opportunity to mix things up and make walking/cycling/catching the bus a regular option, so we've provided some tips for parents to get started. While our regular active transport days are on hold, it's a matter of making the best of what we can! Hopefully Term 3 will see us back to all guns blazing :)

It was a super rainy and windy start to the day here in Albany, but the Mount Lockyer Primary students are a resilient bunch - we still had over 70 bike riders in our Ride2School Day bike parade! Amazing effort by those kids (and their parents). We had great fun doing laps around the quadrangle before the judging for best decorated bike in junior and senior categories. It was a very tough job, but Ms Mclean managed to pick out two awesome bikes to receive a great prize - congratulations to Macy and Thatcher. Great job all round Team Lockyer :)

Our new student team of Tessa and Chloe hit the ground running last week - a quick briefing then straight into our Term 1 Hands Up survey! It was a great introduction to being involved in Your Move, as they could see first hand the differences in active transport levels between year groups and classes. Overall, the results were very encouraging - a 5% decrease in driving from our Term 4 2019 survey, and a huge 12% decrease in driving compared to Term 1 last year. Fantastic to see! We've also done a bit of extra analysis to look at just the Year 5s and 6s, and in this survey they cracked the magical 50% level of active transport, which is also fantastic. Onward and upward for 2020!

Mount Lockyer's new bike and scooter racks are in! The City of Albany trades crew attracted a crowd of interested onlookers during installation, but they still got the job done - and they look fantastic! A little bit of education required to teach the kids to put their bikes in the right way, but we will get there :) Big thanks to the Your Move crew for making our Connecting Schools Grant happen, and for overcoming the extra logistical challenge that goes with getting things delivered to regional schools. It's such a great addition to the school and already being very well used.

There were grey skies overhead for our first TravelSmart Tuesday of the year, but the rain held off and it certainly didn't put off our keen bike riders and walkers. We gave out more than 50 entries to our prize draw, and there were lots more who we know we missed - given the start of year rush, there hadn't been as much promotion this time around and lots of regular riders/walkers didn't come to get an entry. This is a good lesson and we'll be reminding everyone a lot more before our Week 8 TravelSmart Tuesday. On the up side, three lucky winners had their names drawn, and were able to choose their own reward from the active transport prize box :)

As the school year comes to a close, it's time for a bit of reflection! This is the article that will be included in the final newsletter to wrap up the year's activities:

It's been a busy 2019 in all things active transport at Mount Lockyer Primary School. The involvement and support of the whole school community has meant we've been able to get a lot of things happening this year - here are some of the highlights:

* A huge turnout for the Ride to School Day and bike parade in Term 1, and the Walk to School Day and breakfast in Term 2. * Positive results in our Hands Up surveys, with awards for classes who recorded the highest percentage of active transporters. * The introduction of a Your Move student team to help coordinate school activities. * Conducting a parent survey to identify the key issues and barriers for active transport. * Working with Lockyer Community Kindergarten to provide information for new school families. * Mr Small completed a Cycling Australia School Teachers training course. * Kicking off our regular TravelSmart Tuesdays, which will be a regular feature on the school calendar next year.

As a result of all these activities, we have reached Platinum level with the Your Move program - and we are one of only 8 schools in WA to reach that level. This means that next year we are going to have some new bike racks and a scooter rack to accommodate the growing number of students who are walking and scooting to school.

Thank you to the teachers and parents who have been involved in the Active Transport Working Group, and to Matilda, Saige, Charlotte and Toby who made up our first ever Your Move student team. Most importantly, thank you to all the students and their families who find their way to school using active transport. The more people who walk, cycle or catch the bus, the healthier we are and the less traffic we have around our school - making it a safer environment for everyone. There's some exciting plans coming together for next year, but until then - have a safe and healthy festive season.

It was the final job of the year for the Your Move student team last week, as they presented some prizes at the assembly. Three lucky students had their raffle tickets drawn from our TravelSmart Tuesday entries, and they received a Your Move water bottle and a free entry to the swimming pool at the Albany Leisure and Aquatic Centre.

The team also presented on the Term 4 Hands Up survey results, which showed that we were maintaining our improvements in active transport rates. As a change from presenting an award for the top 3 active transport classes, to round out the year we decided to give an award for the class who had showed the most improvement over the year. The award went to the active transport champions from Year 1 (Room 4), who went from 24% AT in Term 1, to 45% in Term 4. A big congratulations to those students who are getting into some great travel habits!

And that was that for our 2019 Your Move student team, and time to also acknowledge their efforts for the year with a certificate and prize pack. Matilda, Charlotte, Saige and Toby have done a fantastic job, and will set the standard for the 2020 team.

Another perfect day for our second TravelSmart Tuesday - 110 raffle tickets handed out, 60 bikes and scooters in the racks - can't ask for much more than that! Except perhaps for some more bike racks (see photo), but these are not far away thanks to our Connecting Schools Grant. Can't wait!

Mount Lockyer's first TravelSmart Tuesday was a resounding success - a nice sunny day and lots of keen walkers and riders. Our Your Move student team handed out over 100 raffle tickets for the morning and the bike racks were overflowing (as you can see from the photo!). At today's assembly, 3 lucky winners will be drawn out and will go home with a Your Move water bottle and a free entry to the swimming pool. A great start for what will now be a regular event on the school calendar.

Term 4 is going to see the launch of TravelSmart Tuesdays at Mount Lockyer Primary. Tuesday of Week 4 will see our Your Move team handing out raffle tickets to all students who arrive using active transport, with some lucky winners to be drawn at the assembly later that week to receive some Your Move prizes. We are going to start off by running TravelSmart Tuesdays twice a term, and see how we go! We hope it will be a regular fixture on the school calendar in 2020.

It's nearly the end of Term 3, which seems to be the time of year we start thinking beyond the next term and on to the next school year! So we've started putting some information together for our next group of pre-primary students who will be commencing in 2020. To do this, we are working closely with Mount Lockyer Community Kindergarten, which is just down the road and is where the bulk of our PP students come from. The 78 kindy families will be receiving a copy of the Mount Lockyer Park and Ride/Walk map, as well as the School Buses Made Simple map. Hopefully this will plant the seed for families to start thinking now about how they will get to school next year. We'll also provide some simple road safety tips for our incoming 2020 kindy groups, so that they are setting themselves up now to be future walkers and bike riders!

Our Mount Lockyer Primary School Your Move student team did another fantastic job at today's school assembly. They are really embracing their roles and growing in confidence each term!

The focus today was on sharing the results from our Term 3 Hands Up survey, that we conducted last week. We found that 34% of students arrived at school on foot, on a bike or scooter, or came on a bus. This was similar to our Term 2 survey, so it’s great to see that the numbers haven’t dropped over winter. It also means we’ve still improved overall since the start of the year, which is more good news.

With the data we collected for the Hands Up survey, we have worked out which classrooms are this term’s top 3 active transport champions. There were some amazing results, with the top 3 classrooms having more than 60% of students using active transport.

The winners were: In 3rd place, on 63%, Room 12 (Year 5). In 2nd place, on 64%, was Room 18 (Year 3). And congratulations to the winners once again for this term, on a huge 77%, Room 25 (Year 5).

And to top off a great day - a full bike rack :)

Mount Lockyer Primary's Phys Ed teacher, Mr Small, recently took part in a Cycling Australia School Teacher's training. It was an action packed day - lots of riding and new skills learned. Next step is to see how those new skills can be put to use in the school and shared with the students. Working some bike ed into longer term planning is the end goal, but in the shorter term an after school bike club is on the cards. Another great string to the bow for Mount Lockyer's active transport efforts!

We've just wound up our active transport survey, and the results are very interesting! Some confirmed our thoughts, others are maybe a little more challenging, but also exciting.

While 63% of our respondents lived less than 5km from school, only 30% regularly walked and 15% regularly cycled or scooted to school. Two thirds of students arrived at school by car on 4 or 5 days in an average week.

The really interesting bit is the reasons why people drive, and the things that people thought would make it more likely for their kids to be able to walk or cycle instead of driving them to school. Some things we can't change (like the Albany weather!), but others we can - and these are the things we will keep front of mind in the next steps of our Your Move journey.

Here's hoping that this box is soon full with surveys from our school community!

It's been a fantastic start to the year at Mount Lockyer Primary, with a huge amount of support for our special events. Now it's time to dig a bit deeper, and find out some of the reasons why our students travel to school the way that they do - and what we might be able to do to make the decision to use active transport an easier one.

We've set up the survey online as well as in hard copy, and will be promoting via the newsletter and social media. Fingers crossed for lots of responses, and some new insights.

Our Mount Lockyer Your Move student leaders conducted their Term 2 Hands Up survey last week, which found some great results. There was a 7% decrease in car trips compared to the last survey, and some very positive increases in cycling and walking.

The student team came up with the idea to award a prize each term for the classrooms who record the highest level of active transport - and so our Active Transport Champions Awards are born!

The Your Move team did a fantastic job at today's assembly in handing out the awards, and giving some really positive feedback to the school about our progress in active transport. Great job Charlotte, Matilda, Toby and Saige - and to our top 3 classrooms, Room 25, Room 11 and Room 3.

Albany punches well above its weight in terms of schools participating in Your Move, and to keep that momentum going, we now have an Albany Your Move schools network.

This has come about as an unintended (but positive) consequence of hosting a remote site for the Your Move schools forum earlier this year, where the schools who attended found it really helpful to have the opportunity to share experiences and all the various ups and downs involved in promoting active transport!

The network is an informal affair - a once a term catch up for coffee, and email/phone contact in between if needed. So far, we have 4 schools involved (Great Southern Grammar, St Josephs College, Albany Primary School and Mount Lockyer Primary School) and look forward to welcoming any other schools to join us, no matter where they are on their Your Move journey.

Any local schools (in Albany or surrounding towns) who are keen to join us for our next catch up are welcome to contact Andrea Smithson on andrea.smithson@albany.wa.gov.au to link in.

Walk to School Day was a great success for Mount Lockyer Primary School - not only did we dodge the rain, we had an amazing turnout for the group walk and family breakfast! More than 100 students and around 20 staff and family members walked as a group from the local shopping centre - a brisk 2km walk to get warmed up on this chilly morning.

That group joined others who had walked from home in the hall for a Walk to School Day breakfast, which was made possible through a grant from Communities for Children. There was lots of yummy and healthy food to keep everyone going for the rest of the day.

A big thanks to all the students, families and staff who walked today, and to the Your Move student team who did a great job in helping with the breakfast.

The Mount Lockyer Primary Your Move student team have had a busy start to Term 2.

Last week, they did their first presentation at a school assembly, and despite a few nerves, they did a great job of letting the school community know about their role, and to promote the upcoming Walk to School Day.

This week is was time to conduct the Term 2 Hands Up survey. Now the YM team knows the drill, it was a seamless process - with some great results! Compared to our Term 1 survey, we have seen a 7% decrease in car trips, and a huge 29% increase in cycling and 20% increase in walking. Amazing stuff! The team have also come up with a great idea to give out awards to the top 3 Your Move classes, which we will work on presenting at the next assembly.

This Friday the students will also be helping out at the Walk to School Day event, which promises to be another great active transport day for the school. Congratulations to Matilda, Charlotte, Sage and Toby - you are doing a fantastic job!

The Mount Lockyer Primary School working group had their first meeting for Term 2 today, with lots on the schedule for the next 10 weeks. The first focus will be Walk Safely to School Day in Week 3, with a group walk planned as well as a healthy breakfast at school.

We will also be seeking more feedback from the school community through a family survey and suggestion box, which we hope will give us some better insights into the particular issues people feel are important.

Another busy term ahead!

A big thanks to Carol-Anne and David from the Your Move team for making it possible for schools in Albany to take part in the recent Schools Forum from off-site. As much as we'd love to be there in person, a 10 hour round trip makes it pretty hard to justify! So it was great to be able to be part of the conversation and feel part of the network. It was also an excellent opportunity for the local school reps to connect and share experiences.

Now we know how to make it work - we'll look forward to being part of future events!

Four Year 5 students from Mount Lockyer Primary School have been selected to form the school's first Your Move student team - and they are raring to go! The team are already active transport champions, and they are ready to get involved in a range of events and activities that are planned in and around the school over the next term.

What a fun start to the day at Mount Lockyer Primary School! After a week of stormy weather, we managed to score an hour of no rain for our bike parade. And what a turnout! More than 80 decorated bikes, and another 20 or so in the racks. It was gridlock around the quadrangle, but we all managed a few laps before the judging. It was a difficult job, but we managed to pick 4 winners of Your Move prize packs for their creatively decorated bikes. Amazing work Mount Lockyer!

Mount Lockyer Primary School is geared up (pardon the pun!) for a great year in active transport. We had our first meeting this week, with a motivated team of teachers and parents on board for 2019 and lots of great ideas discussed.

Ride2School Day will get things off to a brilliant start next week, with a Bike Parade planned for the big day with prizes for the best decorated bikes.

That will be just the start, watch this space for some great activities coming up for the rest of the year. If this is the number of bikes in our racks already...can't wait to see where we can go!

It was a cold blustery day here in Albany on Friday with temperatures below 10 degree at 10am yet we still had some very brave students ride and walk to school. They got hailed and rained on but that still didn't stop them. With 11 students riding and another 18 walking. Well done to all of them.

Friday 23rd March was Ride to School day and what a day it was. It had been raining all night and morning and it was looking like it wasn't going to stop any time soon.

But it takes more than that to stop the students and parents of Mount Lockyer Primary School. We had over 150 students and their parents brave the weather and either ride a bike, scooter or walk to school. A few groups got a bit wet but no one complained and the students thought it was great.

Every student received a sticker and a ticket into a raffle for some fantastic prizes that was drawn after lunch.

Luckily the weather cleared up and it was fine sky's for the way home after school. A huge thanks to Mr Small his help handing out stickers and raffle tickets.

Lockyer Primary School was the first school in Albany to take advantage of some free cycle education for their students provided by the City of Albany thanks to some funding from RAC.

Five sessions of approximately 50 minutes were run during the day by Albany Leisure Centre staff member and qualified Mountain Bike Coach Matt Walker with almost 80 students participating during the day.

Sessions focused on the basics of safe riding including how to conduct a basic bike check, the proper way to wear a bike helmet, hand signals and how to interact with traffic.

Matt will be returning to Lockyer PS on 15^th March to run some more sessions for some additional students as well as visiting other Albany Schools over the next two school terms.

Students who rode or walked to school over the last two weeks of term had their names put in a prize draw to win vouchers to Icky Finks and Orana Cinemas. There were six small prizes, plus a grand prize of a cinema voucher for two children and one adult including refreshments.

Mr Faulkner was impressed that some students walked or rode almost every day, even in the middle of winter! We were very glad to see the grand prize go to one such student.

The first prize draw took place at an assembly early on in the two weeks which promoted the competition and encouraged more students to join in. The final draw was made on the last day of term, when the bike racks showed that several hardy students had ridden to school despite plenty of rain that day!

After a wet week we were glad the rain held off for Walk Safely to School Day on Friday 19 May. Starting at the local cinema, 45 students (with supervising parents and teachers) joined a walking school bus for the 2km journey to school. Other students walked from home to school along different routes.

Thanks to support from Your Move, students who rode their bikes and scooters on Ride2School Day took part in bike skills lessons with Tammy Stone from Pedal Revolution. They practised stopping safely, riding in straight lines, signalling, weaving and learnt about helmet, path and road safety. The slow race was a highlight.

Ride2School Day was a huge success at Mount Lockyer PS and the bike racks were overflowing. One hundred students rode bikes and 20 rode scooters! This was even more impressive given that the Year 6 students were away on camp. Enthusiasm was high and students arrived looking forward to the bike skills activities to be held throughout the day. Ride2School Day was advertised in the school newsletter, on Facebook and by announcements over the PA.

We took our first Hands Up survey of students and were impressed to find that more than 30% had arrived by bus, bike or on foot. We have lots of students who live within 5km of school, but also many who live quite a distance away so it's great that the bus is an option. Looking forward to seeing that number grow during the year!