Albany Primary School’s promotion of active transport results in more Your Move Awards

Albany Primary School’s efforts to encourage its students to be more active has earned it two Your Move awards from the State Government. The school received the School Innovate Award for the mountain bike trail built on its grounds earlier this year and the School Champion Team Award in recognition of its Your Move team. The Your Move team is a group of six Year 5 students who encourage the rest of the student body to be active, including doing regular surveys on the number of students who walk or ride to school. The team changes each semester to allow more students to take on official leadership roles. The school also won a Your Move Achieve award in 2018. P&C sustainability committee member Andrea Smithson said the awards were recognition for a sustained effort over a long period. “It’s amazing to see the students really embracing that leadership opportunity by being great role models for active transport,” she said. “They are really out there wanting to do that to promote the health and wellbeing of the whole school community. “It’s about having the student team working alongside staff and parents — the whole school community coming together is what really made all the difference.” The mountain bike trail is a loop at the back of the school which was built by volunteers with help from Outdoors Great Southern in March after the school received a $2500 Connecting Schools Grant. “Outdoors Great Southern came on board to design and worked out the materials we would need,” Ms Smithson said. “Essentially, when it came to building it was a lot of donations of materials and time to work over two weekends. “It was just a stack of parents and kids and staff doing the work and organising it between themselves.” The 2022 Your Move awards were handed out to schools, local governments and workplaces last week in recognition of their efforts to promote walking, bike riding and public transport use. Transport Minister Rita Saffioti visited the school on Thursday to deliver the awards. “It’s great to see the innovative and creative ways the award winners are embracing active transport and helping to reduce car use in their communities and workplaces,” she said. “The awards recognise the achievements of partners in the Your Move community and the effort, time and enthusiasm they have put into making a difference.”