A Cycle Bus is a fun way to travel to school with students cycling along a designated route with parents accompanying them. It is a parent/guardian/community-led initiative whereby several parents and volunteers lead groups of cycling students to one or more schools. Cycle Buses have a specific route with stops along the way where students can join.
Everyone has a right to cycle to school and a Cycle Bus can ensure a safer journey with everyone cycling together in a convoy.
The Cycle Bus Guide gives background information on Cycle Buses as well as a basic list on how to get started and where to find support.
The School Cycle Bus Planning Document is an extensive document created by a team in Galway that provides detailed information on planning, communication, marshalling, sample documents and much more.
The sample documents are basic word documents that your Cycle Bus can edit how you see fit. The sample documents include guidelines with a space for route map, pupil contract, parent consent form, volunteer interest form, and a sample letter to the school principal. Each Cycle Bus is unique and may use all or none or even different documents to organise their group, feel free to do what suits your group best.
The poster can be used to promote your Cycle Bus in schools on the noticeboard, parents board, staff room, on the school website, etc.
Funding is available through the CycleBus Community on ChangeX for cycle buses in Dublin. Find out more on the ChangeX website.
CYCLE RIGHT is the National Standard for Cycle Training and is produced and supported by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, the Road Safety Authority and Cycling Ireland. This course is designed to prepare all cyclists (or future cyclists) to move through the road system in the safest possible way both for themselves and other road users. A great resource for anyone wanting to feel more confident on a bike is the cycle right online course, which can be taken by anyone at any time, for free. This course – which takes approximately 3 hours- focuses on increasing your knowledge on five different areas, such as:
The course is organised in a set of different modules which can be taken individually or all together. The whole course is interactive and well presented with demo video as well. At the end of each module, you will find a short quiz to test your understanding and when finishing and passing all the modules you will receive a certificate.
In addition to this –for pupils who are in schools currently working on the Travel or Global Citizenship Travel themes – Green-Schools can offer in person cycle training and bike maintenance training for students as well as a get in gear training for parents and teachers. If your child’s school is currently working on the Travel or Global Citizenship themes, get in touch with us and we can put you in contact with the relevant Travel Officer for this training.
The Cycle Bus Network brings together volunteers from cycle buses all around Ireland to create a cycle bus community. In this Network, volunteer leaders can share their cycle bus expertise, tips, queries, and troubleshoot issues as they come up. The Network is an excellent platform for established cycle buses to help new cycles buses get started as well as share successes and challenges of running a cycle bus. As the goal of cycle buses is for children to cycle safely to school, this Network helps to unite cycle buses around the country and create more visibility. As a member of the Cycle Bus Network, cycle buses have access to meetings, events, support and resources.
Help us build a nationwide Cycle Bus Network by registering your Cycle Bus with Green-Schools to ensure that everyone can link in for advice, support and solidarity. Email cyclebus@eeu.antaisce.org for more information.
Get in touch with the Cycle Bus Network to link in with other buses around the country: cyclebus@eeu.antaisce.org
Green-Schools, An Taisce Environmental Education Unit. Registered Charity Number: CHY 4741 / CRA No: 20006358 / Company No: 12469
