AUSTRALIA’S Governor-General Quentin Bryce took time out of her busy schedule on May 7 to walk her grandchildren to school.
Ms Bryce walked with students through the school gates of Our Lady Help of Christians School, Hendra, Brisbane, as part of the 11th annual Walk Safely to School Day.
Over half a million primary school children, many of them Catholic, did the same thing, foregoing their normal mode of transport to walk either part or all of the way to school.
Walk Safely to School Day is aimed at promoting the message that “Active Kids are Healthy Kids”.
It also encourages parents, carers and their children to build regular walking to and from school into their daily routine, and to drive less and walk more.
This brings the added benefits of decreasing dangerous vehicle congestion around schools and reducing carbon emissions from idling cars.
For the 2010 event Professor Rob Moodie, from the National Preventative Health Task Force, issued the challenge for parents and carers to get involved in order to increase life expectancy.
He said if children did not become more active, they may well be living shorter lives than their parents.
“If you think about it, their lifestyles are so different to those kids growing up in the ’60s,” he said.
“We used to walk to school, there were no computer games, we were told to go and play outside every day.
“Too many kids are driven for short journeys nowadays.
“It’s really important we get kids off their backsides and onto their feet and National Walk Safely to School Day is the perfect time for parents to start healthy habits.”
Principal of Mater Dei School, Ashgrove West, Peter Delaney said the day also helped develop the vital road-crossing skills that children needed to become safe pedestrians.
“Where possible I encourage all children to walk to school with a parent or carer,” Mr Delaney said.
“Those who live too far away are encouraged to leave their car a good distance from the school and walk the rest of the way.”
Mr Delaney said many students already walked to school particularly during second term as part of Mater Dei’s Kilometre Club.
“We run it for most of term two as part of their cross-country training,” he said.
“Twice a week, kids are dropped off at a park about 800m from the school where we hold the cross-country and they run between two and five kilometres before then walking on to school.”
Cheryl Harvey, from the Active Travel Committee at St John Vianney’s primary school, Manly, said they were pleased with the number of students who joined the existing “walking” school buses.
“We had three ‘buses’ and about 200 children all up,” Ms Harvey said.
“Our normal walking school buses operate from two locations on a Wednesday and walk with parent volunteers. For this one-off event the whole school got involved including teaching staff that met with children and also walked to school.”
Our Lady of Mt Carmel school, Coorparoo, had six meeting points for children to walk to school and assistant principal Tony Shaw said 231 students and their families took part.
“If children walked their families walked with them and the six meeting points were from a half to a kilometre from the school which was good distance for those pushing prams and walking with toddlers,” Mr Shaw said.
He said Our Lady of Mount Carmel had been taking part in the walk for a number of years and in the three years he had been with the school this was the best turn-out.
Once at school, as with many other schools participating, students were treated to a healthy breakfast with lots of fruits, fruit juices and water.
Estimates of the numbers of cars left in garages on the morning range up to about 100 for some schools.
