Despite growing awareness of the benefits of active travel, relatively few children cycle to school in the UK. Safety concerns, distance, and infrastructure all play a role. To understand the challenge, it helps to look first at how many children currently travel to school by bike, and how those figures compare to adults and other forms of travel.
How many children currently cycle to school?
The National Travel Survey shows that children aged 11-16 are more likely to use active travel (cycling and walking) to get to school than younger children. Unsurprisingly, those who live closer to school are more likely to travel this way.
In 2024, 51% of children aged 5-10 (primary school age) walked to school. Cycling is not mentioned in the survey for this group. Among secondary school pupils (aged 11-16), 37% walked to school and 2% cycled. Therefore, a total of 39% of secondary school pupils and 37% of primary school pupils nationally are using active travel.
For comparison, the 2021 Census provides insight into adult commuting patterns, though 2021 was anomalous due to Covid-19 restrictions, which led to a larger proportion of the working population working from home. However, of those who did commute, 7.6% walked, 3.7% travelled by train and 2% cycled. This means that only 13.3% of adults used active travel overall. Therefore, more children than adults used active travel, (51% and 39% of children compared with 13.3% of adults), showing that children are significantly more likely than adults to walk or cycle to their destination.
Figures from Oxford City Council, however, tell a very different story. They claim that 14.5% travelled by bus and 61.2% walked or cycled, compared with just 13.3% nationally. Active travel is therefore more popular in Oxford than across the country as a whole.
Why should more children cycle to school?
According to Cycling England, about half of all school children would like to cycle to school even though only 2% do. This shows a clear enthusiasm for cycling that isn’t yet supported.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) lists many advantages of cycling. For one, air quality is significantly better for cyclists and pedestrians: air pollution inside a car is more than three times higher than that experienced by those travelling actively. Cycling and walking also cost almost nothing, while running a car is expensive. RoSPA estimates that families could save around £400 in savings per year if children walked or cycled to school instead of being driven.
There are also clear educational and social advantages. Firstly, the RoSPA cite research demonstrating that children who walk or cycle have better concentration levels than those taken by car. Furthermore, cycling has social benefits, allowing children to cycle to school with their friends, helping children towards happier and healthier lifestyles.
In short, cycling to school benefits children’s health, their community, and the environment. It encourages exercise, independence, and cleaner air for everyone. But for many families, these benefits remain out of reach.
What stops children cycling to school?
A range of factors can prevent children from cycling or walking to school. The cost of purchasing and maintaining a bike can be prohibitive. For some families, the distance is simply too far, or the journey would take too long to be practical. Some parents also consider their children too young to walk or cycle to school, especially without a parent accompanying them.
Safety concerns often play an even bigger role. Illegitimate parking around schools is often cited as a problem: many parents drive their children right up to the school gates and park there, obstructing pavements and making it unsafe for other children on foot or bike. A lack of safe cycle routes can also discourage cycling to school, as can a lack of secure bicycle parking at school.
However, one study found that attitudes towards cycling are at least as important as road conditions in determining whether children cycle to school. The attitude of the parents are especially influential: if parents cycle themselves and speak positively about cycling, their child is more likely to want to cycle to school.
How do we get more children to cycle to school?
So how do we get the many children who would like to, to cycle to school? A number of schemes exist to remove barriers and make active travel safe and appealing. Some of them are described below.
School Streets
According to the Department for Transport, School Streets are roads near a school that are closed to traffic at the start and the end of the school day. The aim is to reduce congestion and make walking and cycling safer and more attractive for pupils. These schemes not only improve road safety but also improve air quality by reducing emissions. Furthermore, pupils who walk or cycle to school together will be able to socialise along the way. As a result, children’s physical and mental health can benefit, they learn to be more independent and they develop early active travel habits which can be carried into later life.
Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) describes School Streets as “an active travel initiative to create safer and healthier car free environments outside schools”. OCC started its first wave of School Streets in 2021, running six-week trials at nine schools. Four of them decided to make the schemes permanent and continued to a public consultation. Three of these were in Oxford.
The Department for Transport has explored different ways to enforce School Streets, including portable barriers and volunteer stewards, as well as permanent signs and camara enforcement. Oxfordshire initially used portable barriers and volunteer teams, followed by a consultation and then permanent signage and ANPR cameras once the schemes were made permanent.
In 2024, five new schools began trial periods, four of them in Oxford. Again, the public consultation demonstrated overwhelming support for the school trials and all five were made permanent.
In September-October 2025, public feedback on three further School Street proposals outside Oxford were sought, as well as on an extension to an existing Oxford scheme. Sandhills Community Primary School identified parking issues on a street just outside its current School Street scheme and proposed extending the scheme to include that street as well.
Bikeability
Bikeability is a charitable trust that runs cycle training, primarily for schoolchildren, but also for adults and families. The Department for Transport advocates cycle training as a key way to increase the number of pupils who cycle to school. Since it was founded in 2007, Bikeability has trained more than five million children. Its purpose is to “activate a nation of cyclists by ensuring everyone has the confidence to enjoy the life skill, independence and fun of cycling”.
The author notes that, after a serious road traffic collision, she was helped to get back on her bike by a Bikeability instructor who “buddied” her on her first ride back on the bike. The instructor was encouraging but not overbearing.
She allowed me to take on only what I wanted to and, every time we came across a situation which could be problematic, she stopped and asked me how I would approach this. I am now happily back on my bike thanks to her.
Oxfordshire County Council offers free Bikeability training to schools around the county. Bikeability instructors can often be seen training groups of children around the city. However, although Bikeability also offers cycle training for adults and for families, the author could find no mention of it on the County Council website.
Kidical Mass
Critical Mass started in San Francisco in 1992. It came to the UK in 1994 in London. It aims to bring together enough cyclists to slow motor traffic down and make cycling safer on roads, usually in an urban environment. Kidical Mass is an offshoot of this movement, created in the United States fifteen years ago and is now a worldwide movement. Its purpose is to give children the experience of cycling safely on the street in groups.
The first Oxford Kidical Mass ride was organised 2022, attracting around 100 participants. It was a mix of children, parents, and adults as stewards. The author has stewarded every ride in Oxford since then. By 2025, participation had more than doubled to over 200 riders.
Oxford Kidical Mass starts at various starting locations, with feeder rides from different directions converging in the city centre where the cyclists do a circuit of the centre before dispersing. What began with two feeder rides at the first Oxford Kidical Mass, the number has now risen to four, from all points of the compass. Parents remain responsible for their own children, who are enthusiastic participants. The slowest cyclists ride at the head of the ride, with stewards in front, at the sides and at the rear make sure that no one is left behind.
Early Kidical Mass rides received mixed reactions from motorists, but attitudes have become overwhelmingly positive. Drivers wait patiently, and sometimes smile and wave at the Kidical Mass ride.
The Oxford organiser states that the purpose of Kidical Mass is to give children the experience of cycling on the roads, and give them practice in various aspects of cycling such as how to handle their bikes, how to follow a route and how to cycle with others. He also stresses the fun aspect of a Kidical Mass. It is a joyful event very much enjoyed by the children participating and appreciated by their parents.
And for the future?
It appears that all these methods play their part in encouraging more children to cycle to school: School streets make it safer and reassure parents that it is safe for their children to cycle. Bikeability has a role in improving the children’s own confidence and skills. Kidical mass bring children and parents together in a fun cycle outing. This should improve children’s skills and reassure parents.
Perhaps, given the research showing how important parents attitude towards cycling is to help children cycle to school, more emphasis should be laid on training for families or, indeed, cycle training for adults. Good quality cycle route provision remains important and would almost certainly increase parents’ perception of their child being safe to cycle to school.
Comments? We want to hear them. Please write to editor@westenglandbylines.co.uk
