Walk with Wheels Week

Walk with Wheels Week encourages pre-school children, parents and carers to walk, wheel, scoot and cycle, all or part of their journey, each day they attend their setting.

The week-long initiative is designed to encourage and establish healthy habits. Travelling actively can not only help families achieve their daily level of recommended physical activity but is also shown to increase both physical and mental wellbeing. With time to talk and share quality time as a family, it is a great way to start and finish the day.

The challenge

Walk with Wheels Week takes place each May during National Walking Month and is open to all Hampshire nurseries, pre-schools, playgroups and childminders. The most recent event ran from Monday 19 May to Friday 23 May 2025, with 66 early years settings signing up to take part. Settings received resources to promote the event and encourage families to enjoy walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling together. There were competitions to enter for both settings and children, fully funded by the UK Government.

Our Walk with Wheels Week supporting information page offers practical ideas for adapting the event to ensure everyone has the opportunity to get involved.

The competition winners

Children's competition

Children at participating settings were invited to enter their Walk with Wheels Week Challenge Passports into our competition for a chance to win a prize. The Challenge Passports included an Explorer Challenge, where children were encouraged to find as many of the pictured items as possible during their active journeys throughout the week. 

Thank you to all those who entered the competition. We are delighted to announce the prize draw winner and runner-up.

Winner: Emma from St Bernards Nursery who won a Micro Scooter with scooter lock.

Runner-up: Jacob from Stepping Stones Preschool who won a pair of waterproof dungarees.

Settings' competition

Participating early years settings were asked to deliver an active travel initiative that would encourage children, their parents and carers, and staff to walk, wheel, scoot and cycle during the week. Each setting was provided with a list of suggested activities or they could choose to use their own ideas. We received some wonderful entries, showcasing inspiring and creative ways to promote active travel and raise awareness of the benefits of walking, wheeling, scooting and cycling.

This years winning setting is Feathered Skies Nursery & Preschool in Middle Wallop, who chose garden and pirate themed den building kits as their prize.

Feathered Skies began promoting Walk with Wheels Week early in May, sharing information with families via their newsletter, noticeboard and the Famly app, as well as handing out a Challenge Passport to each child. Active and sustainable travel was the focus for the entire week, with different activities and events organised every day. These included Songs and Stories, road safety role play, an active travel art display, an active travel procession followed by a themed snack time and finishing the week with a Park and Stride event. For the Park and Stride, staff and families gathered at a nearby park early in the morning to all walk together to the nursery.

The response was fantastic and the impact has been noticeable - children excited to share how they travelled each day and fewer cars on the road outside the nursery, a change that continued beyond the challenge week. Staff also got involved by taking part in a step challenge, motivating everyone to get moving and meet up for walks. In total, 15 staff members walked over 610,000 steps in five days!

Our runner-up is Lydlynch Pre-school in Totton, who have received a road safety role play set as their prize.

Throughout the week, the pre-school recorded how the children travelled each day they attended. At the end of the week, they ran a 'Bling your Wheels' event, inviting the children to decorate their bikes, scooters and trikes and join a playground parade alongside children from the local infant school. The parade was judged by a local Councillor with prizes awarded for the best blinged scooter and bike. 

Well done to all settings, children and families that took part!

Walk with Wheels fun activities and ideas

Why not use some of these ideas and resources to learn more about active, safe and sustainable travel?

• Plan an active travel and road safety focus week. The My Journey early years curriculum resources provide suggested activities for early years settings across each learning goal and parents can visit the active travel and wellbeing pages for ideas and inspiration. Also, visit the Think! website and use some of the lessons or resources to learn more about the Green Cross Code and other road safety messages.
• Families can make their active journeys even more fun by downloading our activity sheet - Getting to know your local area. This could also be used by settings while on a local walk too.
• Create a 'Walk of Fame' in your outdoor area. Use chalk or mud to create footprints and wheel tracks to represent all the children and adults who walk, wheel, scoot or cycle. 
• Make or download flash cards to help identify different types of sustainable travel and features in our local area which can help us travel sustainably such as crossing points, bus stops, signs, etc.
• Use tuff tray activities, role play and small world play with a road safety theme. Mrs Mactivity and Twinkl have resources which you may like to use but please note, an account is required.
• If you have the space, set up a track or route to practice using scooters and balance bikes. Some of the information in our scooting guidelines may be helpful.

Read the online air quality story A Wild Walk to School at your setting or at home.

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