Joining the Tuart Hill Your Move Team

I am excited to be posting my first story since being invited to join as a parent in the dynamic team at Tuart Hill in the Your Move. I am passionate about encouraging physical activity in children as well as promoting safety for children in our community. I have been considering barriers identified for children walking or riding to school independently.

As a parent to two very active kids with very different needs and maturity (6 year old boy and 11 year old girl) I have faced some barriers and have been talking to our Principal, Mrs Innes about some ideas of how we could over come them. For me, one of the barriers to my eldest riding to school on her own is that I would like to know when she gets to school safely.

Our school's absentee texts/reminders get sent out at about 11am and for me and many parents, that too long if for some reason my child was delayed on their way to school. I was pondering if there could be a way that kids who are old enough to walk or ride to school independently (eg over the age of 10 years) could "check-in" at school- perhaps with the Your Move student representatives and have a text or email sent to parents to advise that they have arrived safely.

I wonder if this is an issue that has been contemplated by any other schools and I will investigate further if there are other solutions which already exist? One 'blue sky' concept I would love to see would be a "Your Move" app which could be used as both an outcome measure to easily record numbers and method of kids commuting school and also for those older kids commuting independently where the 'Check-In" feature could also involve a notification to parents to let them know their child arrived safely. I will keep you posted of an progress with this area...