About Walk 4 Life

This page is for teachers and other school staff or home educators.

We're really keen to make it easy for schools to use this website. It's got lots of features that are really helpful for schools, and of course it is free to use ! 

We've created a short guide with examples of how it can be used in the classroom, see the Resources for Teachers below. We'll also come and demonstrate it if you want.

There are a few basics we want to point out first :

• The site is funded by BIG and the Department of Health so it is free to use.
• It's all about walking - encouraging people to walk more, and about making it easy for them to find out where they can go.
• There are thousands of walks already on the site, and more are added every day.
• It uses Ordnance Survey mapping - at a variety of scales, so is great for teaching children how to use maps.
• Anyone can create their own route, and you can see how long it is (in miles) as you create it - great for seeing how far it is to walk to school.
• Users have their own profiles, and build up a record of how far they have walked.
• It is anonymous - we don't collect any information that can be used to identify anyone - so it is safe for children to use.
• Walks created, and groups, can be private - so that only the people who need to see them can do so. So you can create a group for your class and add walking routes to children's homes and no-one will see them except you.
• Users can create groups, and can take part in challenges. Class 1 and class 2 could be groups, and could race to see which class walks the distance to Paris first, or perhaps somewhere a bit nearer for the infants.

Resources for teachers

• Introduction for teachers (pdf)
• Teaching with Walk4Life (pdf)
• Walk4Life Key Stage 2 Activities (pdf)
• Walk4Life certificate (pdf)
• Teacher's Pack (all four documents above) (pdf)
• Walk the Torch -  Information for schools 

Case Studies

We are also creating case studies of real live schools using the site.  We'd like to find more, so if you are using the site and are happy for us to tell others how wonderful you are please let us know - email lisa.smith@walkengland.org.uk. 

• Coventry (pdf)
• Nuneaton (pdf)
• see more about the Nuneaton case study here

Would you like some FREE "I've walked a mile" stickers for the children? Simply contact us with how many stickers you would like (they come in sheets of 20) and your postal address.

Why not start a group for your class now ? It is such an easy process and here's where you can do it 

If you have any questions about using the website or would like a demonstration of how it works then please get in touch.

Security

Just a bit more on the security point : Users create their own profiles. To do this we need a few basic pieces of information including a user name (which appears on the site), and email address (but if you don't want us to contact you this doesn't have to be a real one), and a postcode. 

We don't give any personal information to anyone, the site is completely safe for children to use. If you have any concerns or questions please contact us.