What can you do at School:
🥕 Did you know…?
Almost one in four school lunches (23%) ends up in the bin — and half of that waste is vegetables!
That’s a lot of good food (and hard work) wasted every single day.
Travel Tips:
The Walk it. Ride it.
The campaign encourages residents in Leeds to replace short car journeys with walking or cycling by promoting routes, providing training and offering travel advice. We found 76% awareness, with 33% of people walking more and 40% planning to walk more.
Bikeability:
The UK’s national cycle training scheme is delivered in schools to teach safe cycling and road awareness. Since 2007, over 5–6 million children have been trained, with around 400,000 pupils taking part each year.
Modeshift STARS
This helps schools create travel plans that promote walking, cycling, and public transport by offering activities such as walking buses and student travel ambassadors. The programme involves 1.68 million pupils and staff and has helped remove over 2.5 million car trips from the school run annually. The
Access to Schools Project Leeds:
The project aims to improve roads, paths and crossings around schools to support cycling, walking and scooting. Measures such as safer crossings, wider pavements and cycle routes build on the city’s 148 km cycling network and cycle storage at over 216 schools.
Leeds Schools Padlet:
What is Your Council doing?
Super Schools: Powering Up for the Planet
Leeds City Council is turning your classrooms into the greenest spaces in the city! We are transforming school buildings across Leeds with eco-friendly makeovers, swapping out old boilers for high-tech gadgets that use the sun and the air to keep you warm while you learn.
The Result: We have secured £4.3 million to upgrade primary schools with shiny new solar panels, smart insulation, and "Air Source Heat Pumps"—clever machines that pull heat from the air to warm your school.
The Impact: This means your school is now a planet-saving powerhouse that uses less energy and creates almost zero pollution. We are fixing our buildings today to make sure you have a cleaner, greener world to grow up in.
Scoring for the Planet: The Great Kit Exchange
Leeds City Council is helping schools and clubs across the city make sure that no sports kit goes to waste. Instead of old football boots or PE kits being thrown in the bin when you outgrow them, we are working with our partners to give them a second life with a new owner.
The Result: Our amazing Leeds Equipment and Kit Exchange Partnership was so successful it won a global award in 2024! So far, more than 20,000 items of sports kit have been collected, recycled, or reused by community groups right here in Leeds.
The Impact: This means thousands of items are kept out of landfill, which is great for the environment, and more children can join in with sports because they have the gear they need. By recycling our kit, we are proving that being a "team player" means looking after our planet too!
The School Streets Project
What is it? A "School Street" is a road outside a school that closes to cars and vans during drop-off and pick-up times. This turns the street into a quiet, safe zone for you and your friends to walk, cycle, or scoot right to the gates!
Meet Arlo the Owl Have you seen a giant owl at your school? That’s Arlo, our mascot for safe travel! Arlo is part of our Vision Zero plan, which has a big goal: to have zero serious road accidents in Leeds by 2040. Arlo loves leading "Walking Buses" and high-fiving students who choose green ways to get to school.
New for 2026: More Schools Joining In! We are working harder than ever to make your journey safer. In early 2026, we started new projects in Middleton and Halton Moor at schools like Elements Primary, Corpus Christi, and Meadowfield. These schools are getting wider pavements and better crossings to help everyone "wheel" to school safely.
Why it’s a Win:
Fresher Air: By stopping cars from idling (leaving engines running) outside the gates, the air around your playground stays clean and healthy.
Safe Zones: Schools like Ireland Wood Primary now use "Park and Stride." You park a short walk away and then "stride" the rest of the way in a car-free zone.
Active Brains: Walking or scooting to school is a great way to wake up your brain and get your body moving before your first lesson!
