Donal Hickey: Children should get priority at school gates

Air pollution outside a north Dublin primary school fell by 20% after a ban on ‘school run’ traffic. Picture: iStock

Children being dropped off at school gates today would surely find it difficult to understand the sort of world depicted in Alice Taylor’s celebrated memoir, To School Through The Fields.

The writer’s experience of growing up on a farm near Newmarket, Co Cork, could be echoed by countless thousands of other people who walked long distances to school. We knew some who trudged four to five miles in all kinds of weather.

Now, as life in the classroom has resumed after a long break, there are plans to reduce traffic congestion outside the gates through the use of ‘school zones’.

Earlier this year, air pollution outside a north Dublin primary school fell by 20% after a ban on ‘school run’ traffic, while the number of children walking, cycling or scooting to the school rose by 50%. Experts in environment and health fields have long been calling for moves to make it easier for pupils to walk or cycle.

The zones are designed to encourage vehicles to slow down, discourage drop off and pick up and to increase school gate safety as well as reducing traffic and emissions.

Recently in a national survey, 200 school principals identified vehicle parking and drop off congestion as the number one challenge for social distancing at the front of their schools.

Since last October, Green-Schools, Dublin City Council and the National Transport Authority (NTA) have been developing the zone concept which is being trialled at Francis Street CBS, in Dublin 8, and Central Model School, in Dublin 1. This is the first of its kind in Ireland and it is hoped more schools will follow the example.

The zones are clearly marked by different colours and pencil-shaped bollards, making school entrances safer for children, limiting cars and giving priority to pedestrians and cyclists.

“Green-Schools hopes that more ‘school zones’ are trialled throughout Ireland so that children in urban and rural communities can be given priority at the school gate and can actively commute to school,’’ explains Jane Hackett, national manager of Green-Schools Travel.

Studies in the US show that obesity has been reduced by one-fifth in children who walk or cycle to school, while the extra physical activity helps them learn better and allays attention disorders. A study of 7,000 children in Denmark supported such findings and also discovered that exercise improved their concentration in the classroom.

Alice Taylor wrote that, in her time, school was only part of a much-broader education. She portrayed a rural idyll which may not be realistic in today’s world when walking on any road is a hazard. But it should still be possible for children to still experience just a little of that exposure to nature’s magic. The new zones are a start.