Barking & Dagenham schools that participated in The Big Walk & Wheel welcome Allan Cadabra’s Education By Magic show
Barking & Dagenham has been accelerating its active travel programme this year, encouraging school pupils to take part in walk to school challenges, providing borough residents with cycle hubs to repair their bicycles, and launching a consultation to provide more cycling infrastructure throughout the borough.
Continuing the momentum, Be First, the urban regeneration arm of Barking & Dagenham Council, Sustrans, the sustainable transport charity, and Barking & Dagenham Council organised a series of events to reward schools that took part in The Big Walk & Wheel – the UK’s biggest active travel competition for schools; encouraging pupils to walk or cycle to school.
Six schools in the borough – Village Infants, William Ford, Hunters Hall, Henry Green, Parsloes, and Dorothy Barley Junior – welcomed ‘Education By Magic’ magician, Allan Cadabra, where he performed his ‘Road Safety’ magic show.
Designed to reinforce road safety principles in a fun and engaging way, the show has been seen by over 915,000 pupils since 2007 and is one of the most successful Road Safety Magic Shows in the UK. Pupils joined in with the festivities as Allan Cadabra encouraged them to sing and dance in his fun-filled approach.
Both the Road Safety Magic Show and The Big Wheel and Walk are a continuation of Be First’s Active Travel programme to encourage people to travel without their cars.
Cllr Cameron Geddes, Cabinet Member for Regeneration & Economic Development at Barking & Dagenham Council, said: “It was such a delight being here with Barking & Dagenham pupils and Allan Cadabra to see his Road Safety Magic Show – it’s fantastic to see the children so engaged with active travel. We’ve been expanding our active travel programme this year and we’re proud to deliver a safer and healthier Barking & Dagenham.”
Victoria Spashett, Transport Planning Officer at Be First, said: “As part of our active travel programme we want to ensure that the message is sustained, and these magic shows are a great way of teaching our younger residents all about road safety and encouraging them to travel without a car in a safe way. We want Barking and Dagenham to be a safe place for our young people to live, and learning road safety in a fun way is part of that – a big thank you to all the schools that have been participating in our programme and are committed to delivering better health and wellbeing outcomes for their pupils.”
