Across London, the school run is estimated to contribute 30% of the morning traffic, thereby adding to the congestion, carbon emissions, air pollution and general stress and unpleasantness of city life. Walking, on the other hand, even just short distances (e.g. from Sloane Square tube to here), delivers a host of benefits to the individual and to society. And yet, 30% of FHS students are regularly driven to school. As a result, every morning, the air quality on our doorstep in Graham Terrace significantly exceeds the safe limit defined by the World Health Organisation.

Clearly, it’s in the interests of our fellow-Londoners, the planet – and indeed our own health – to empower our students to travel independently to school, whether by bus, tube, bicycle, scooter or their own two feet.

That’s the message of our biannual Walk-to-School Week (the other being in the Summer). Every day this week, form tutors have been surveying how their tutees travelled to school that morning.  At the time of writing, the data has yet to be fully crunched and the Sustainable Travel winners declared – but it does look like the numbers of car journeys fell some way below 30%. And unless I’m imagining it, Graham Terrace has been relatively traffic-free in the mornings. Long may it remain so!

The teachers too have done their bit ‘pour encourager les autres’. On Wednesday, 5 of them on bicycles met at South Ken tube station to ride the last mile together – in a mini-peloton. It would be an exaggeration to claim we were met by cheering crowds at FHS – but next time, with more of us…

And on Thursday, Ms Vickery and I walked the 4.5 miles in to school from Shepherd’s Bush. It’s the second time we’ve done this – and we love it! In our hectic, screen-dominated lives, what better therapy than simply walking and talking for an hour or so? Join us when we do it again in the summer!

Mr Macdonald-Brown, Head of Sustainability