CASE STUDY
I’m Anne French headteacher Leadhills Primary. I've been headteacher at Leadhills now for 12 years.
We are the highest school in Scotland, or one of the highest schools in Scotland. That’s the claim to fame. It's a lovely rural school. It's on the border of South Lanarkshire and Dumfries and Galloway.
Very community based. We have good partner links with lots of the local community groups. A lot of history within the village of Leadhills and Wanlockhead. For example, the Miners’ Library is situated next door to the school and it's one of the oldest lending libraries in the country, if not the world. Built on mining, a mining industry which is now obviously depleted, but over at Wanlockhead there is the Mining Museum, and that's just recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, which the school and the kids have been heavily involved in.
We very much put ourselves at the heart of the village. Without the school and without the next generation coming through. You don't want village life to die.
Currently we have 17 children. Numbers were more but COVID has hit in a slightly different way. There's lots of transient families and Airbnb second homes from COVID, but things go in cycles. I'm hopeful that there's movement within the village. There’s houses up for sale. Hopefully that will encourage some families to come, and the numbers increase. We might be a small school, but we punch our weight.
When I first came there wasn't a lot of Bikeability. Over the years we've touched on it in cycles. I'm Bikeabilty trained and I've led it. I’ve led it in conjunction with one of the parents at the time. Because we're a small school, we need to look outwards and involve the community more and help provide these opportunities for the children.
Knowing the village and knowing the children there was a lot of need. One, to keep them safe on the road outside because it is a main road, and two, the children were looking to do Wheelie Friday - they had that before COVID. They were looking for Wheelie Friday, they were looking to bring their bikes in and be able to cycle to school.
To do that they need to have the knowledge. Last year will looked at equity for all and through PEF (Pupil Equity Funding) and sustainability funding we looked at how we could actually do that across the whole school. We managed to secure funding for storage for the bikes and then we were looking to source bikes for everybody. Children grow very quickly and there's all that recycling and sustainability that you can pass on, upcycle, etc.
We also knew that there were children who couldn't ride their bikes. For all we were saying, it was Bikeability and we've got two members of staff through training, we were very conscious it was more about bike confidence for a lot of them, and actually being able to ride the bike, which a lot of them hadn’t.
We built the foundations. We managed to get in touch with Healthy Valleys, which is a local charity over at Rigside. They had a Gear Up scheme. They were employing two people specifically for cycling and bike maintenance. We got in touch with them and managed to source a trike for one of our pupils who wasn't secure on a two-wheeled bike.
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The joy in his face at being included with everybody else. Knowing that he was going to be able to participate in the Bikeability sessions, same as everybody else, was amazing. And he actually went from September last year on the three-wheeled trike to a two-wheeled bike in May, June.
It's a lovely setting, it's a rural setting, and children should be outside enjoying it. It's given them a confidence. A lot of them lack self-confidence. A younger child who couldn't ride the bike - but because we had that opportunity - staff were able to work with them, increase that bike confidence and by May, June, they could actually ride a bike. And the joy in his face. That's what you do for.
It's not all about academic success and I think that's the biggest thing. It's knowing that is something that they've done and they've managed. Yes, we’ve facilitated it, but at the end of the day, they've done it, they've achieved it.
Bringing Bikeability to Scotland’s Highest Village
As one of hundreds of schools delivering Bikeability Scotland training to primary school pupils, Leadhills Primary School, South Lanarkshire has been awarded ‘School of the Year 2024’.
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