Sylvan Infant and Branksome Heath School secure £33,000 funding for new bikes and bikeability training

Poole schools Sylvan Infant and Branksome Heath will be able to improve their children’s confidence in bike riding with new bikes after securing funding worth £33,000.

The two schools successfully won the money from the local authority after putting in a bid through CIL, a community infrastructure levy that ensures people who build in the community support the development of the surrounding area.

The money will provide the children with opportunities that they may not have had prior to the funding. The schools already provide ‘balanceability’ and ‘bikeability’ but the new funding will allow them to provide more sessions, including some for parents and children.

Darryl Walsh, Head Teacher of Sylvan Infant School said: “There will be opportunities to build on bike riding skills at points in between Early Years and Year 5 and 6. Previously the children were working on balance bikes to pedal in Early Years and then becoming more confident with road riding but nothing in between.”

The bid will now provide Balanceability and Bikeability for Early Years, Year 2, 5 and 6. The schools aim is to improve competence and confidence in bike riding within their community.

This comes after the school had a very poor take up for Bikeability sessions in the last summer term in Year 5 and 6. They then noticed that a number of their Year 6 pupils could not ride a bike after taking them to Poole Cycle Speedway.

In addition to the Balanceability in Early Years and Bikeability in Year 2, 5 and 6 the funding will pay for bike storage, bikes on site for use by parents and children and bike maintenance.

Mr Walsh also said: “We are delighted with the injection of money into our schools and community, and are excited to get more children and adults riding their bikes and feeling safe doing so”.

He also said: “Many of our parents suggested that they did not feel safe on the roads in our locality, so we would eventually love to see more cycle paths added to the Newtown/Parkstone area to help with this issue.”