Car Sharing

Why Car Share?

In Devon parents "school run" journeys total about 150,000 km a day!  With an increasing awareness of climate change, the need to reduce our carbon footprint, and the increasing cost of using a car, families are becoming more interested in car sharing.

 This is an effective way to save time and money ,

 It will help improve the local environment around the school, reducing congestion and pollution.

 At the same time it will help reduce greenhouse gases for everyone's sake , but especially your childrens

How?

Many schools are proving successful at promoting it.  Here are some ideas that have been tried and tested in schools, to help you set up a car-sharing scheme.

Get the Children on your Side:
Do another mapping exercise to see what the current travel situation is and to see who could realistically be car sharing(Contact us for large paper maps or use the GIS).  Talk about climate change and what pupils can do to reduce their own carbon footprint.  Do some "carbon calculations" for car travel

Get pupils in Years 4, 5 and 6 to design their own car sharing leaflets to take home.  Children will probably enjoy designing their own leaflets, after a discussion of what they should include, but there is also a template available on our website, if you would prefer to use that (see below).  You could also include a map from our GIS website showing where people live.  This is compiled from the schools’ census data.  Choose one of the best designs to go out to the rest of the school.  

Run a competition to design a poster promoting car sharing.  The winning entry/entries could go up around the school and as part of a display in the lobby for parents.  Let us know if you want prizes as we have many freebies and some book tokens available.  The winning entry could also go on the website and in your prospectus when you next update it.

Perhaps just before the launch of your car share register, one class could prepare and perform an assembly for the whole school.  A role play on car sharing would go down well!

Set up a Car Share Register at the School
If you are a small school this will be a relatively easy thing to do.  Send a questionnaire out to parents, designed by the children, to see who is interested in car sharing and match families up according to post code.  Ideally your administrator will oversee the database and keep it up to date.  It would be a good idea to physically introduce parents, if they do not know each other.  Make a display in the lobby advertising your new data base and encouraging parents to take part.  

Take every Opportunity to Advertise Your Car Share Register
Make sure you have details of the car share register and why you are encouraging car sharing in the pack for new parents.  Perhaps include the car share leaflet that went out to parents.  Discuss car sharing with parents when you show them round the school to introduce them to the idea, as getting parents into good habits early can only be a good thing.  Have a car share display in the lobby to remind parents.

Provide Information on Child In-Car Safety
It is important that if parents decide to car share they comply with recent changes to legislation regarding child in-car safety.  Also provide them with the DCC Guidelines on Car Sharing, which will help them to feel confident about sharing the school run with another family and ensure child safety and security.

Download these documents:

Promoting Car Sharing at your School (28KB - pdf help)

Car Sharing Guidelines for Parents (107KB - pdf help)

Leaflet Template

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