A primary school pupil from Renfrewshire is celebrating being named one of eleven winners in a UK-wide design competition, as pupils across the UK take strides to get their hands on his winning design.
Andrei, aged 11 from Kirklandneuk Primary, Renfrewshire entered the WOW badge design competition from Living Streets, the UK charity for everyday walking.
WOW is Living Streets’ award-winning walk to school challenge which sees children who walk, wheel, cycle, scoot or park and stride to school at least once a week rewarded with collectable badges each month, designed by pupils in a UK-wide competition.
The 2024 theme was ‘Walk with Imagination’, which challenged pupils to use their creativity to draw an unusual walk to school. Andrei chose to create a colourful Under the Sea design, which was selected out of over 200k entries. He explained: “I imagined that I am walking under the sea. There is no pollution, the sea is beautiful and clean.”
Kirklandneuk Primary has also topped a Scottish leaderboard of WOW schools, in honour of the high number of pupils who travel actively to school. Yesterday (Wednesday 22 January), Andrei was joined by representatives from Strathclyde Passenger Transport and Living Streets mascot Strider to celebrate the winning design and their leaderboard success.
Photo: Andrei, aged 11 from Kirklandneuk Primary was 1 of 11 winners in UK-wide design competition
Photo Credit: Living Streets
Andrei’s design has now been turned into one of the monthly badges and will be awarded to pupils in over 1,500 schools across the UK who travel actively to school during January.
Catherine Woodhead, Chief Executive, Living Streets said: “WOW is a great way to help keep children healthy and happy by encouraging them to be active every day. More children walking to school also means fewer cars around the school gates – making them safer and cleaner places.
“Children love taking part in WOW and collecting the recyclable badges. This year, we were looking for engaging, fun and colourful depictions of ‘Walk with Imagination’ – and the winning designs certainly delivered. Andrei should be very proud to have pupils across Scotland, England and Wales taking strides to get their hands on his design.”
Karen MacKechnie, Headteacher at Kirklandneuk Primary said: “We commend Andrei for his wonderful Under the Sea design – well done! We’re also delighted to have topped the WOW Top Ten leaderboard once again, thanks to the commitment of our pupils to choose to walk, wheel, scoot, cycle and Park and Stride to school. Active travel isn’t just good for our bodies, it’s also helping the environment and making our community a nicer place to be.”
Cllr Stephen Dornan is Chair of Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT), who are funding WOW – the walk to school programme across west central Scotland for 2025. He said:
“SPT fully supports any initiatives that encourage children to actively travel and helps the environment. We are delighted to fund the WOW challenge – the walk to school programme across the west central Scotland from Living Streets – and very impressed with Andrei, as well as all the children from across the UK, who got involved to design badges for the challenge.
“Hopefully, this encourages more children across our area, and across the UK, to walk, cycle, wheel to school and receive this award-winning badge for their efforts.”