Ride2School day 2024

It was a glorious day to ride to school on Friday. We had a slightly above average turn out for 2024, with 63 students riding (48) or scooting (15) to school. This was 7.2% of the school population on Friday, which is an increase from the 6 % who rode when we did the Hands Up survey. The Bike compound was counted the day before Ride2School Day and there were 64 bikes and scooters, representing some 6.8% of the school population. School attendance was down on Friday which showed with our numbers in the bike compound.

We did have a dress up bike bike competition and the Your Move team students wanted to dress up their bike in an 80's theme. We think that only 2 people dressed up their bike this year, a direct contrast to last year when we had lots. We are not sure if this was due to a lack of advertising or whether the theme was too hard. Those of us who grew up in the 80's did scratch our heads when the students suggested it!

Our P & C President was one of the two people to dress up their bikes. ET was a big hit on the day.

In looking back at Ride2School Day in 2023, we had 66 bike riders and another 11 scooter riders which meant that we have had a significant drop in riders and scooters this year. We are not sure what has made the difference. We wonder if it is the number of students actively engaged with the Your Move student team, which is down from last year or did we do more advertising last year? Questions to ponder on....

Students who rode or scooted to school got at least one ticket in the raffle and if they wore a helmet or had a bike lock they got an extra ticket. The raffle had a variety of prizes, including 5 gift vouchers of $100 to our local bike shop, Jet Cycles, which were very kindly donated by Mr Chris Tallentire, MLA, MP for Thornlie. There were 15 prizes in all and interestingly, the winners were all male. This did reflect that most of the bike riders and scooter riders were male.

Promotion of the event included messages in the schools daily notices, PA announcement the afternoon before Ride2School day and a FaceBook post. It has been a short, hot, term but action packed, with week 8 alone having Naplan tests, year 12 students on workplace learning, Harmony week and Harmony Day on the Thursday. Did these things play a factor in our decreased numbers? Maybe not, as we had these factors last year.

Our Principal, Mrs McDonald, drew the winners out during period 2 and the winners and the Your Move team came to the conference room for morning tea and to choose their prizes. The most popular prizes were the gift vouchers for $100. There was much chatter about what they could get with their vouchers.

We did have one more mode of transport today. We had an owl perched on top off the wire roof, below the tin. He oversaw the proceedings of the day. He did not get much sleep with the noise of students in the compound at the beginning of the day and the end, and at recess and lunch. He would be wise to select a different spot to rest next time. :)

We celebrated the National Ride2School day with a Facebook post at the end of the day. It is always a fun day.
:)