Everyone loves the idea of getting young people walking or cycling more. Year after year, pupils in our classrooms say that, given the choice, they would love to travel independently, either on foot or by bike. Reducing the amount of motorised traffic around the school is also something that many of us are aiming for.
RouteGuard is a great way to encourage parents and carers to actively engage with their young people, planning routes and agreeing the boundaries for safe and independent travel. RouteGuard involves pairing an app on the parent's phone with an app on the young person's device, then they can mark up a series of safe zones which might be home, school, friends' houses and after school activities.
After working with advisors in local authority education teams, we wanted to limit access to the app to people who received an organisation code from their school. This helps to ensure that the app is only offered to people with a legitimate reason to be doing travel planning with young people.
By signing up your school and promoting RouteGuard, we hope you find that you can encourage pupils to be more active and their parents to be more confident as they begin to travel independently.