6 November
Sustainable travel earns Aurora Hedgeway School STAR billing
Aurora Hedgeway School in South Gloucestershire has scooped a top accolade thanks to its sustainable travel initiatives.
Modeshift STARS (Sustainable Travel Accreditation and Recognition for Schools) is a Department for Transport backed scheme that recognises schools and other educational establishments that have shown excellence in supporting cycling, walking and other forms of sustainable and active travel.
South Gloucestershire Council has been taking part in the national scheme since 2008 and works closely with schools in its area to support sustainable travel initiatives that help protect the environment and promote healthier, more active lifestyles.
Among them is Aurora Hedgeway School, in Pilning, which has just scooped ‘South Gloucestershire SEN School of the Year’ and ‘South West Regional SEN School of the Year’. The school will now compete with other SEN schools nationally, in March 2026.
School Business Manager and Project Lead Jonty Leigh said it was great to see the school’s efforts around sustainable travel being recognised.
He said: “We began our journey with Modeshift STARS in 2020 when we achieved the bronze award. It was during the pandemic and we tackled issues around car parking, our lack of space and taxis dropping off and picking up pupils.”
One of the challenges the school faced was identifying alternative methods of travel to and from school because of its rural location, something more achievable for schools located in urban environments.
Jonty said: “At that stage, it didn’t look like we could progress any further in the scheme because of the inherent limitations of our setting. Luckily, we were able to sit down with the council to look at how the criteria could be re-evaluated to enable a SEN school in a rural setting to continue up the Modeshift STARS ladder.”
Since then, the school has adopted a number of initiatives including successfully campaigning to reduce the speed limit in the lane leading to the school from 60mph to 20mph; instigating a park-and-ride scheme for staff, using The Wave surfing centre, encouraging more staff to cycle to work and organising online training sessions for pupils.
Having achieved the ‘Very Good Award’ in 2023, and ‘Excellent Award’ in 2025, Jonty has now set his sights on the school achieving an ‘Outstanding Award’ in the future.
“We’ve done a lot of work and the result is that we’ve become only one of two SEN schools in South Gloucestershire to have achieved the ‘Excellent Award’." Jonty Leigh, Project Lead.
He said: "We are really proud of this achievement. We’re also transitioning towards electrifying all our school vehicles which will be another great step to take.”
Headteacher Klaire Rowland said: “It’s incredible to have won both the Local Authority and regional award categories and reflects all the hard work that’s been done to help improve the school’s environmental travel footprint. We’ve come on a real journey and everyone’s been involved, the SLT, staff and pupils – it’s completely inclusive. Hopefully we’ll be able to top it off by winning national recognition next year!”
