Our Lady Queen of Heaven Catholic Primary School
Bike It @ OLQOH
Bike it
Welcome to the Bike It Section of the OLQOH website.
In 2018, OLQOH was the first (and to date, is the only) Crawley School to be awarded the Sustrans Bike-It Gold Award.
Since then, Bike It has continued to go from strength to strength at OLQOH, with all stakeholders working to reduce congestion in and around out school with initiatives such as Park & Stride, Walk and Scoot and Bikeability (Y6 programme).
Aims of Bike it
In 2018, OLQOH was the first (and to date, is the only) Crawley School to be awarded the Sustrans Bike-It Gold Award.
Bike It is led by Miss Goodman (agoodman@olqoh.com). The aim of Bike-It is to:
Reduce congestion on our roads (especially in Hare Lane)
Improve the health of our community by encouraging everyone to cycle (and walk and scoot) to and from school
Reduce pollution through less use of private vehicles
Dr Bike
We are supported by ‘Dr Bike’ from Sustrans. We also work with our friends from Living Streets, WSCC, Decathlon Crawley and Halfords Crawley.
In May 2024 we took part in the Big Pedal Launch with children from OLQOH holding a Q&A with Dame Sarah Storey and Xavier Brice the CEO of Sustrans. This was filmed by ITV Merdian.
During the Spring Term Lock down, pupils at OLQOH were provided with videos from ‘Dr Bike’ at Sustrans which encourage children to see their local area, keep active and learn about the environment from home.
Promoting and Ecouraging with Bike it
In 2023, we achieved third place in Crawley during the Big Pedal fortnight and we hold regular events to promote and encourage including:
Visits from Dr Bike
Half termly Bike It Breakfasts
Special days such as 'Bling Your Bike'
Road safety and 'Be Bright to be Seen' awareness
Regular cycling and scooter training sessions
Sessions on how to maintain your bike ie. puncture repair
Junior Road Safety Officers
Members of our JRSO Team (Junior Road Safety Officers) lead and promote initiatives such as ‘Bike It’ Breakfast. They meet regularly with the Head Teacher and other local officials from the Borough and County and are currently leading the ‘Parking Pledge’ drive.
To remind Parents, Carers and others of the importance of being courteous towards our friends and neighbours, we relaunched our ‘voluntary one way system’ in September 2023.
As a result of the work of the ‘Bike It’ Team and others, including Mr Melia (Head Teacher), Miss Goodman (Teacher), Mr Jasko (Governor), our Head Boy and Head Girl and others, the proportion of children and adults regularly using sustainable forms of travel to and from OLQOH each day has increased by more than 19% from 2018 to 2024. We plan to build on this as we recognise that ‘Better Never Stops’.
Here are a few links for parents and pupils who are interested in training opportunities:
Cycle Training on Sustrans Website
Basic and Trailside Maintenance
One to one cycle training for School Children
Below is a link to Crawley Borough’s website, which provides advice and safe cycling routes around Crawley:
