Bolton Pupils Lead the Way in Greater Manchester WOW Top Ten 

The Valley Community Primary School topped the regional WOW Top Ten leaderboard every term in the 2025-26 academic year

To celebrate International Walk to School Month, we visited The Valley Community School in Bolton to discover how WOW – the walk to school challenge is helping the whole school community feel happier and healthier.

Since joining WOW in 2019, The Valley Community School in Bolton has demonstrated a long-standing commitment to active travel. With WOW, pupils’ health and wellbeing gets a boost and schools see a reduction in congestion and pollution around the gates.

The school's involvement was originally championed by its PE lead, Mr Vickers, who recognised the important role that active travel can play in supporting pupils' health, wellbeing and physical activity levels. Thanks to the school’s enthusiasm, participation has gone from strength to strength, with the WOW programme becoming firmly embedded within the school community.

Last year, the school topped the WOW Top Ten regional leaderboard in Bolton not once, not twice, but three times – making the Valley Community School the most actively engaged school in Bolton across all three WOW Top Ten term challenges.

The school logged over 33,000 walking and wheeling all the way journeys to school between 1 September 2025 and 17 July 2026. This is a 7 percentage point increase in walking and wheeling all the way journeys to school and a 43 percentage point reduction in all the way car journeys to school. WOW Top Ten is a fun and simple way to help boost pupils’ engagement in WOW and can help increase school walking rates. The challenge takes places three times across the school year, with one challenge per term.

The Valley's success has also continued to extend beyond the local area. Not only did the school top the Bolton leaderboard, but in this year’s summer WOW Top Ten challenge, The Valley topped the Greater Manchester leaderboard, outperforming more than 100 participating schools across the region. Pupils were thrilled when Living Streets mascot, Strider, paid the school a surprise visit at a special assembly during Walk to School Week, to share the news of the school’s success.

Mrs S. Caldwell, Year 1 teacher and WOW lead, said:

“The Walk to School campaign has had a positive impact on pupils’ physical health and mental well-being. Walking regularly has helped pupils become more active, improve fitness and feel more energised. It also provides an opportunity to start the school day calmly, reduce stress and enjoy time outdoors with friends. Overall, the campaign has encouraged healthier habits and contributed to pupils feeling happier and more ready to learn."

To add to the school’s impressive engagement, The Valley also reached 14th place nationally in the summer WOW Top Ten challenge in June 2026. The school has now set its sights on breaking into the national WOW Top Ten leaderboard, and we look forward to following The Valley's progress in the autumn WOW Top Ten challenge this month. If you’d like to learn more about WOW Top Ten and how your school can participate, click the link below.