Audits and research

Audits and research

About this activity

Suitable for all nurseries and schools.

Carry out audits and research to help prove that your travel activities have been successful, or to provide an answer to why your efforts to improve have been less successful than you’d hoped. Use the results to provide evidence for resourcing needs to your senior management, for external funding applications, or to promote your school’s active travel work in the local press. 

Your research could include follow-up questionnaires on active travel events or surveying parents/carers about their knowledge of sustainable travel, for example, you could involve an on-street audit to count traffic or interview people who live within your school’s vicinity (see Sustrans' Big Street Survey resource for inspiration).

Work with your TFL Explorer/Pioneer/Navigator Ambassedor and/or your school travel working group to identity the question you want to answer through your research, include who you want to involve and the best way to collect the information you need.

How to evidence your activity

  • Involve your borough travel planning officer: Share your ideas, set targets and discuss any challenges 
  • Record the feedback from those surveyed
  • Sign in to Travel for Life account to tell your story. Detail your activity, include copies of any surveys audits and the results. Add photos of your research in action

Activity steps

1
Identify
Work with colleagues, senior management, borough travel planning officer, TFL ambassador & your school travel working group to identify the question you want answered through your audit or research
2
Planning
Determine your target audience who will best answer your question. Think about who you collate the information from - pupils, staff, parents/carers or the wider school community & how to approach this
3
Promoting
Engage with your school community, discuss the activity & plan, this could be in an assembly, school newsletter and/or its website. Use the opportunity engage more participants, get ideas or for additional support
4
Launch
Carry out your research – collating responses from participants and bring all the results together to analyse your findings
5
Analyse
Look at your results, finding out if your question was answered, any challenges or overwhelming/underwhelming results. Plan further actions.
6
Tell your story
Add your story to the Travel for Life website, recording actions, feedback & presenting findings. Liaise with your borough travel planning officer.

Tags

  • Consultation

This activity counts towards:

  • Consultation

How it helps

  • Encourages pupil participation
  • Encourages a wider school engagement
  • Supports Travel for Life accreditation

Resources

Useful links, templates and case studies to support this activity