St Aidan’s - Cycling School of the Year

Cavan school St Aidan’s National School was named one of Ireland’s Travel Schools of the Year (Cycling Mode) at a ceremony in Dublin on Tuesday. An Taisce Green-Schools presented the school with their award at the event honouring the winners of this year’s Green-Schools BIG Travel Challenge 2023 in Haughton House of Dublin Zoo. Eleven other schools were also awarded on the day for their efforts promoting sustainable and active travel modes to school.

During February schools undertook the BIG Travel Challenge, which asked them to concentrate on one sustainable transport mode for two weeks to see if they could achieve real, lasting change in the travel behaviour of their staff and students. The Challenge is an initiative of the Green-Schools Travel theme, which is supported by the NTA and the Department of Transport.

St Aidan’s, a school of 67 students, excelled and embraced the challenge. They concentrated on encouraging students to cycle to school, and saw the number of students opting to travel to school by bike significantly increase over the two week period. They used the 'Scores on the Doors' resource to record how children travelled to and from school each day, noticing a big increase at all class levels in the number of children choosing a more sustainable way of travelling to school.

Congratulating St Aidan’s and the other awarded schools on their achievements, Green-Schools Travel Manager Ciara Norton said: “My team and I have been so inspired by the many ways schools approached the Big Travel Challenge this year. The winning schools created incredible change in a short period of time, showing the desire among young people to travel to school independently, actively and in a mode that is mindful of our climate and local environment. Well done to all!”

Eleven other schools were awarded for their part in promoting green travel modes to school as part of the BIG Travel Challenge.