Supporting your school
We cycle a fixed route on quiet roads to the three schools in turn. We drop off the pupils for that school at the school gates, but parents have to join. A lot of bike buses do drop off, where the children come by themselves. I ' m not doing that, partly because of health and safety, but also because my goal with the bike bus is to include more adults in cycling and active travel as well.
“ It ' s a fun atmosphere. We ' re ringing our bells. We ' re saying hello to people. We ' re cheering. It ' s a very quick activity. It ' s only like 25 minutes on a Friday morning. It ' s very easy to fit into the day.”
From a safety point of view, I’ m there in high vis and I lead the ride. And then I ' ve got a volunteer dad with a high vis at the back. We try to stick together as one group. We ride on the road, but we try to have the adults on the outside. We have a few right-hand turns and a few slightly busier roads, so we have an adult – it ' s normally Rob, who ' s one of the deputy heads at Kender – who stays in the road to hold up the traffic while we all go around the corner.
Although this is a neighbourhood that does have a problem with traffic, bike bus always feels really safe. Drivers are so nice. They stop for us. Most drivers see us coming and will just stop and wait until we all go past. They don ' t try and drive past us. They don ' t try and overtake us. And most drivers are pretty happy to see us, I think, because it is a nice atmosphere and it ' s lovely to see the kids out.
One of the really big purposes with bike bus is to increase the visibility of kids travelling actively and independently, and increase the visibility of kids cycling, because I know the more cyclists you have on the road, the safer cycling gets because drivers get used to it and adapt.
26 PARENTKIND. ORG AUTUMN / WINTER 2026