PUPILS from a Southampton school saw first hand their local council in action, after winning a well-deserved award.

A total of 20 pupils from Sholing Junior School were invited to a meeting at Southampton City Council to collect their trophy and certificate, crowning them winners of a national competition.

The junior travel ambassadors - along with students, parents and teachers from 20 of Southampton’s schools cycled and scootered the equivalent of a trip round the world making 18,095 journeys by bike or scooter over two weeks.

Part of the Big Pedal it was an initiative aimed at getting people not to drive to school.

Saving the equivalent of half a million balloons of CO2 from being emitted by cars more than one million journeys by bike or scooter were recorded across the country.

Sholing Junior School came out top of Southampton schools, with 49% of students coming to school by bike or scooter during their top five days of the challenge.

Valentine Primary was close behind with 47% of students travelling by bike or scooter, beating out Sholing Junior on their best day, with 21% of students travelling by bike and 40% by scooter.

Megan Streb, Sustrans Partnership Manager for the Solent area said: “The enthusiasm from Southampton students and parents demonstrates real momentum behind improving the school run—getting more kids active in the morning so they are ready to focus at school, are in better health, and have cleaner air to breathe. The fact that we saw so many more students coming by bike and scooter during these two weeks shows that there is potential for more.”

The average distance to primary school is 1.6 miles, but it’s estimated that up to 24% of the traffic during the morning commute is the school run. Changing these short journeys to active travel helps tackle both congestion and childhood obesity.