Acklam Grange, Middlesbrough

June 2008

We are 15 year 8 pupils from Acklam Grange in Middlesbrough . We took a creative approach to Step Up. We did some digital re-design to our streets. We blotted out cars, and painted metal shop shutters pink. We replaced pavements with lawns and 'decorated' lollipop ladies. We worked with a writer to create performance poetry which will take their message about walking to school and took some amazing photos of the area round our school. We took a group of local decision-makers from the police and the local council round the streets near our school, to show them what needs to be improved. You can see us blinging our streets and taking local decision-makers on a guided tour of their streets here.

To find out what  we do next, read our blog below...

We set off from our school before school would normally even start. We arrived in Newcastle at around 9:30 and spent the next 20 minutes finding the venue after Mr Cass got lost. While we waited, we got handed our free T-shirt and information cards. We were bored while waiting for the first session to start, but once it finally did, the displays were entertaining and interesting. The team was delighted to find free food and drink in the foyer. We all took advantage of this while waiting for the first project to start – especially Mr Cass!

The first project was fun as we were still in our school groups and it encouraged us to work as a team. I think it would have been better if we could choose which teams we went in instead of the organisers for the second and third groups.  Street video was exciting as we got to take on the role of a television crew and organise an interview. We had to say what was good and what was bad about walking to school and record it so that a member of staff could edit it together to make a final product. Unfortunately, the last session was quite bad, but this was possibly due to us having to leave 30 minutes early. Our group was split up completely to head off to sessions – many of which we had already done with Sam on the pilot project. I think the instructors tried hard to provide us with an entertaining day out, and would have succeeded except for the last session. However, our school at least would have preferred to have been doing something more different from what we had done on the pilot project.

We are the Acklam Grange Step Up team. We started in year 8 in April 2007, and we are now in year 9. The project started when our assistant head teacher and head of year met up with Sam to get more people walking to school. Our school was one of two that started the pilot project well before everybody else. This included doing photo editing, taking pictures of our streets and producing poems.

There are 16 of us excluding the head of year. About half our team are members of the hockey team. Our head of year is Mr Cass. He has been with us since the beginning. Darren is the technician and along with David and Joe maintains and updates the school website and blog. Sarah, Eloise, Amy, Lois, Daniel and Michaella are the artists of the group, organising the photos, posters and designs. Chloe, Katherine, Demi and Eva are the video crew. They take clips of the walk to school and edit it together. We are looking forward to the campaign because we enjoy working together as a team. We are each doing the area we like best, and can help each other out if we are struggling.