School Travel Plans

• What is a School Travel Plan?
• Why have a School Travel Plan?
• School Travel Plan guidance
• School Travel Plan development
• Carrying out school travel surveys
• Lesson plans and teaching resources
• Promoting walking
• Promoting cycling and scooting
• Promoting health and physical fitness
• Tackling poor driver behaviour
• Transition resources
• Other resources

For more information email road.safety@brighton-hove.gov.uk or call (01273) 292357.

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What is a School Travel Plan?

A School Travel Plan (STP) is a document which sets out how a school will promote safer, active and sustainable travel to school, with the main emphasis being on reducing the number of children being driven to and from school. A good STP should be based on consultation with teachers, parents, pupils and governors and other local people. In order to ensure that the plan remains relevant and appropriate to changing circumstances it is essential that the plan is reviewed and updated regularly. 

An effective school travel plan puts forward a package of measures to:

• reduce the number of vehicles on the journey to school
• improve safety on the journey to school
• encourage more active and sustainable travel choices

Visit your school's web pages or ask at your school office to see a copy of your School's Travel Plan.

Why have a School Travel Plan?

Encouraging active travel at schools has a wide range on benefits, both for the school community, but also for the area around the school and for the whole city in terms of less traffic and congestion. The benefits of having an active School Travel Plan include :

For the pupils

• Improving health and fitness by walking, scooting and cycling
• Improving travel awareness and road user skills
• Improving awareness of their surroundings

For the school​

• Improving safety around the school
• Reducing congestion around the school
• Establishing safer walking and cycling routes around the school
• Contributing to other school policies such as Eco- Schools/Healthy Schools etc
• Linking to the National Curriculum

For parents

• Reducing stress and time spent driving to school, especially when it is congested
• Increasing quality parent/child contact time
• Building better links with the school

For the local community

• Improving the local environment by reducing air and noise pollution
• Reducing congestion problems
• Improving walking routes
• Improving road safety

The more schools in the city which are developing and implementing the measures in their school travel plans, the greater cumulative effect there will be across the city, reducing the reliance on and impact of cars on the school journey, leading to less traffic and congestion in the city around the ‘school run’ period.

School Travel Plan guidance

This guidance is both for schools working on school travel plans (STPs) to promote safer, active and sustainable travel to school, as well as for schools or developers preparing a STP for submission as part of a planning application.

These guidance notes, together with the example travel surveys below, should include all the information you need to write/review your STP.

• BHCC School Travel Plan guidance [PDF 124kb]
• School Travel Plan - examples of actions [WORD 181.5kb]
• SEN School Travel Plan - examples of actions [WORD 81.5kb]

School Travel Plan development

• School travel - in Brighton & Hove
• SUSTRANS School Travel Plan ideas [PDF 245.4kb]
• SEN School Travel Plan - an example [PDF 272.6kb]
• Top tips for school travel [PDF 50 kb]
• Finding funding for school travel projects [PDF 1.2mb]
• Journey planner - School Route Planner

Carrying out school travel surveys

Finding out how people are travelling to your school is a key part of developing a successful School Travel Action Plan. Before writing your School Travel Plan, travel surveys of pupils, staff, and parents/carers can be carried out. 

• BHCC school travel survey guidance [PDF 239kb]

Ideally all the surveys should be done online, including both infant and junior pupil surveys, for speed, accuracy, and ease of reporting.  We can help you by putting surveys on-line for your school on the Brighton & Hove Council Consultation Portal, but we will need at least 2 weeks' notice before the date you intend to survey. The surveys should usually be live for 2 to 3 weeks. See the example online surveys below.

These surveys are examples only and should not be used for your real surveys. You are, however, encouraged to try them out fully, including submitting them, but the answers will be deleted.

Travel plan surveys - online example versions

• Primary, junior and infant parent/carer on-line survey
• Infant pupil on-line survey
• Junior pupil on-line survey
• Secondary pupil on-line survey
• Staff on-line survey – all schools

Travel plan surveys - Word versions

• Primary, junior and infant parent/carer STP survey [WORD 71.5kb]
• Infant pupil STP survey [ WORD 142kb]
• Instructions for carrying out a paper survey with infants [PDF 21.2kb]
• Junior pupil STP survey [WORD 69.5kb]
• Secondary pupil STP survey [WORD 70kb]
• Staff STP survey [WORD 59.5kb]

Lesson plans and teaching resources

• British Heart Foundation - free classroom resources promoting physical activity for children
• The Environmental Transport Association - teaching sustainable transport through the National Curriculum
• BBC Schools - environmental-based lesson plans for key stages 1, 2 and 3
• Go-Learn - resources about using public transport for pupils aged 4 to 14

Promoting health and physical fitness

• Government physical activity guidelines
• School travel and the obesity challenge [PDF 1.9mb]
• Health benefits of walking and cycling to school [PDF 1.9mb]
• Healthy Schools - healthy schools toolkit
• Suss it Out! [PDF 3mb] - ideas for activities to promote active travel to young people
• The Big Shift - Sustran's free online challenge to motivate the school community to travel more actively
• Walking in our city
• Cycling in our city
• Air quality information for the city

Transition resources

• How do you travel to school? booklet [PDF 890kb] - a guide for parents about safer and active travel in the city
• New families campaign [PDF 426kb] - guidance for children starting school at primary level
• Upgrade - journey into Year 7 - a secondary school transition web site developed in London but much of the general information is relevant for pupils, parents and teachers in Brighton & Hove. Input any London borough to access the information.
• Moving Up [PDF 3.6mb] - promoting active travel to 11 -18 year olds 

Other resources

• Sustainable travel in the city
• BHee - Brighton and Hove environmental education project
• Liftshare - lift sharing savings calculator

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