Walk to School program's continued success

Published on 24 February 2020

The Gannawarra’s continuous support of the state-wide VicHealth Walk to School initiative has been rewarded, with two local schools winning prizes for participation in the 2019 program.

St Joseph’s Primary School, Kerang has been named the 2019 North Western Region winner, with the school to host a clinic from an Australian Football League or Australian Football League Women’s player at a later date.

Cohuna Consolidated School, which was the North Western Region runner-up, will receive a football prize pack from the AFL Players Association.

Prizes were awarded to schools that used creative or unique ideas to get students involved, gave students multiple opportunities to participate, saw high levels of participation from the school community and worked to create longer-term behaviour change.

St Joseph’s Primary School, Kerang instigated “active brain breaks” to incorporate additional physical activity time into the school day. 

“Council has coordinated a local Gannawarra VicHealth Walk to School program for the past seven years in partnership with a number of local health organisations,” Mayor Lorraine Learmonth said.

“The program promotes the benefits of physical activity and improving safe access travel routes to and from school for primary school aged children.

“This is the sixth year at least one school within the Gannawarra has been recognised for high levels of participation and Council is looking forward to hosting the program for an eighth time later in the year.”

All 10 primary schools located within the Gannawarra take part in the annual program, and in 2019 local schools joined 932 other schools across Victoria by increasing their active travel to and from school, or the school bus. The schools were from 71 of the 79 council areas in Victoria. 

“An estimated 186,600 students walked, cycled or scooted to school during the first four weeks of Term 4 2019, which is the highest figure in the state-wide initiative’s 14-year history,” Mayor Learmonth said.

“Congratulations to all local students, parents and schools, and particularly our competition winners, for taking part in Walk to School 2019 and their ongoing commitment to encouraging children to be active and healthy every day.”

 ABOVE: St Joseph's Primary School, Kerang principal, Chris Mitchell (second from left) with students Sophie Edwards, Saxon Povey-Walker and Cody Wilkinson. The school has been named the 2019 North West Region winner of the VicHealth Walk to School Program.