Who are we?
We are Elmbridge Primary School based in Gloucester, with 630 children on roll.
Elmbridge Primary School is one big family. We foster warm relationships, mutual respect and a love of learning that helps us to conquer an ever-changing world. Our exciting journey is one of growth, discovery and opportunity for everyone, opening doors to a bright future.
What are we crowdfunding for?
Active Travel! We want to encourage the children and families in our school to travel in an active way. To do this, we want to invest in bike and scooter storage that allows children to store their equipment safely. We also want to offer opportunities to all by creating a bike and scooter library, where we loan bikes, scooters and safety equipment to children who do not have their own.
We are hoping to use these spaces on the infant and junior sites:
We would like our bike and scooter storage to look a bit like this:
Why are we crowdfunding?
We are extremely passionate about this project and there are a number of reasons why we think it is so important. We have explained these below:
At Elmbridge Primary School, we are dedicated to giving children opportunities to be active throughout our wider curriculum, not just in PE lessons. We believe it is important for the children in our school to develop healthy habits and skills that will stay with them as they grow up. We want our children to leave our school knowing the many benefits of active travel and choosing to use these forms of transport in their day to day lives.
Active travel has clear benefits for physical health. According to NHS guidelines, children should be doing around 60 minutes of exercise a day. Incorporating exercise into your day-to-day life by travelling actively is a fantastic way to improve your physical health. Exercise can help prevent and manage many diseases so it is important that we encourage our children to make exercise a normal part of their lives.
Walking or cycling outside in the fresh air can have a huge impact on mental health. Physical activity can enhance wellbeing by improving self-perception and self-esteem, improving sleep quality, and by reducing levels of anxiety. The fresh air and activity helps children to feel more awake, relaxed and happier. Active travel also allows for more opportunities for social interaction amongst families and with other children, compared to in a solitary car where the driver has to focus on the road.
We have noticed that the roads around our school at school drop off and pick up time can get dangerously busy. According to baseline data we've collected from the children, around 59% of our children, 373 to be exact, travel to school by car most days. That's a lot of cars! As so many young children and their families are accessing the school everyday, we want to be proactive in creating a safer environment for our local community. By encouraging our children to actively travel, we will reduce congestion on the roads and help children to get to school safely.
By reducing the number of cars on the road, we will also reduce the emissions around the school, leading to better air quality in the surrounding area. We teach our children about their carbon footprint and active travel is a fantastic opportunity to reduce it.
What are we hoping to raise?
We are aiming to raise £5000 through crowdfunding. If we meet this target, the Sport England Movement Fund will grant us £5000 towards our project. We are keen to meet the £5000 target so we don't miss out on the grant that would bring us up to a total of £10,000 overall. This will be a huge opportunity for Elmbridge to improve provisions for our students. No matter what amount of money we raise, please be assured all of the money will go towards our active travel project.
How will we spend the money raised?
All of the money raised in this crowdfunding will go towards the cost of our active travel project. This includes the cost of materials and labour to construct the bike and scooter storage, as well as the cost of bikes, scooters and safety equipment for our bike and scooter library. The money raised may also go towards necessary safety checks and staff training related to the active travel project.
How can you play your part?
There are different ways you can help us reach our target and make this project a reality:
1. Kindly, make a donation.
2. Look out for fundraising events and get involved.
3. Share information about our project with your family and friends.
4. Offer rewards. If you are a local business, you can get involved by donating things we can offer to our supporters. We will give you a shout out! Please get in touch.
5. If you have any ideas on how you can help, please get in touch and let us know!