School travel plans (STP)

School travel plans help to improve the health and well-being of pupils and staff, and reduce pollution and congestion around schools, as well as saving money for parents and the school community.

STARS accreditation

STARS (sustainable travel, active, responsible, safe) is Transport for London’s (TfL) school travel plan accreditation scheme for London schools and nurseries. STARS inspires young londoners to travel to school sustainably, actively, responsibly and safely by championing walking, scooting and cycling.

  • Unlock additional funding grants and school activities from TfL and Ealing Council
  • Provide evidence for Ofsted of promoting and achieving active travel
  • Count towards healthy schools silver and gold awards
  • Allow Ealing Council to work strategically to address traffic issues around your school
  • Comply with planning conditions for schools (where applicable)
  • Provide networking opportunities with other schools and invitations to award events.

The STARS accreditation comes as bronze, silver and gold awards and provides an on-line travel plan. The travel plan will also help towards keeping pupils safe, improving punctuality and attendance, reducing child obesity and improving health and well-being. Schools can include sustainability within the curriculum, providing a supportive and caring school environment.

All Ealing schools have been set up on the STARS website. The STARS champion can register to access their school’s profile.

You can see your school's level on 2020-21 STARS accreditation list (pdf)

Want to boost your accreditation level?

TfL have put together some guides to help you do this. Each one lists a range of different activities that can be done as part of each event and how you go about them. Doing extra activities during events all count as additional stories and will boost you towards your school’s next accreditation.

Already have Healthy Schools accreditation? Find out where Healthy Schools crosses over with STARS (pdf)

STARS 1:1 Sessions

We advise school travel champions to book a 1:1 STARS surgery every half term. These sessions are for champions to get help and advice from the school travel team on anything STARS related or your work on school travel planning. If you are new to STARS or just want to find out more about it and how to become accredited, you can also book a 1:1 surgery with the team.

Book an appointment

To book an appointment please email us (sta@ealing.gov.uk) 3 dates and times which are convenient for you, for example, before or after school, lunch time or during your PPA time. We will do our very best to make sure we can book one of these in.

All we ask is that the sessions do not begin before 8.30am or finish later than 5pm. Each session will usually run for up to 30 minutes. If you need more than one session, we are happy to accommodate this too. So, why not book your STARS 1-1 Surgery today.

Home learning resources for teachers and parents

STARS at home activities primary schools (pdf)

STARS at home activities high schools (pdf)

STARS at home activities special schools (pdf)

Planning applications

Planning applications for school expansions or rebuilding usually require an up to date travel plan which clearly sets out how the school will promote safe and sustainable travel to the school site and what measures will be taken to mitigate against the possible increased levels of car trips/congestion that the expansion might cause.

Developers and schools must review the STP and the planning process guidance and use the interim STP template to produce the travel plan for their planning application available on the Ealing Council website. For more information contact us at the school travel team.

School travel calendar

School travel calendar events related to sustainable travel (pdf)
View calendar of school events related to sustainable travel for 2023/24

School Travel for Life activity planner (pdf)
We encourage schools to plan ahead to ensure a smooth accreditation process. Please use this planner or one of your own. Word copies can be sent to you by emailing us at sta@ealing.gov.uk. Alternatively, you can save this pdf onto your device, open Word, then open the pdf document in Word to make it editable.

Resources

Active Travel booklist (pdf)
Encouraging active travel can happen as easily as sharing books with children with exciting travel tales and active travel adventures. We would love you to share the Active Travel book list with your school community, during the school year, but particularly around World Book Day each year. Perhaps you could even have a selection of these books in your class libraries/school library for children to enjoy.

Why not showcase the books in assembly, ask your Travel Ambassadors to peer read with the younger children and discuss the stories and lessons in the books. These are ways of not only engaging the children but working towards your Travel for Life accreditation.

If you know of some books that are not included, please get in touch on sta@ealing.gov.uk so that we can add them for future updates.

Big Walk and Wheel toolkit (pdf)
The Big Walk and Wheel is the UK’s biggest inter-school cycling, walking, wheeling and scooting competition and is celebrating its 15th year.

Register to be in with a chance of not only winning some great prizes but also joining hundreds of other schools including those in Ealing in promoting active travel on the school journey.

From 11 - 22 March 2024 join in the fun to see the longer term impact on your active travel numbers.

Children will be able to participate as long as they use active travel for the school journey – this includes walking, wheeling (wheelchair users, cycling, scooting) and those who use Park and Stride areas. There is an Ealing league table and the school travel team will be giving daily updates on X @EalingSTARS during the competition to spur you along.

Check out the Big Walk and Wheel toolkit above for some great ideas on how to promote it and make it the best year ever. We look forward to seeing how well each Ealing school does.

Road safety week 19 - 25 November 2023
Road Safety Week is the UK’s biggest road safety event every November, organised by ‘Brake’, a national road safety charity. The theme of Road Safety Week 2022 is ’Safe roads for all', which brings together communities and professionals to promote everyone’s right to make safe and healthy journeys on safe roads.

Here is our downloadable Road Safety Week guide 2023 (pdf) with supporting information, resources and ideas to help schools raise awareness for road safety.

This year we have an assembly schools can use to encourage children to Be Bright, Be Seen. It will help schools to raise awareness of the importance of being visible as the days and evenings get darker.

Email sta@ealing.gov.uk if you would like the assembly powerpoint with the teachers notes.

Workshop play script
A new workshop-play script, linked to active travel, road safety and air quality. A series of 6 drama improvisation workshops that fit together to form a play, performed by pupils to parents and the rest of the school. This raises awareness of environmental and congestion issues associated with car use, in particular parent parking and supports promotion of walking and cycling. It’s perfect for schools who want to target a specific class or year group. We have both PDF and hard copies that schools can borrow. Please contact us for more information.

Health Fair game (pdf)
We have produced this downloadable game for schools to give to Junior Travel Ambassadors (JTAs) to use during their health fairs. It’s a great way to engage families with the idea of active travel!

Terri the Tiger (pdf)
Sadly, schools cannot hire Terri the Tiger, our sustainable travel mascot, at the moment! We will let you know when it is safe for him to return to schools. Contact us for more information and to book.

Ealing's junior travel ambassador (JTA) annual programme
Programme for 2022/23

Walking and cycling initiatives
Walk and cycle to school initiatives and resources.

Active travel maps
Maps to promote walking to school

Tackling parent parking issues
Organising a perfect parking campaign.

Useful links
Websites and resources to help with your STP.

Contact us

School travel plan support can be provided by:
Nicky Batkin
Senior school travel adviser
Tel: 020 8825 9648
Email: sta@ealing.gov.uk

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Last updated: 01 Mar 2024

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