Angus pupil wins national badge design competition
A primary school pupil from Angus is celebrating being named one of eleven winners in a nationwide badge design competition which received almost 200k entries.
Oscar, aged 10, from Birkhill Primary School in Angus entered the WOW badge design competition from Living Streets, the UK charity for everyday walking.
Living Streets’ award-winning WOW – the walk to school challenge 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 2025 theme, ‘Walk with Joy’, invited pupils to use their imagination and creativity to create a badge that represented something that made them happy. Oscar chose to create his colourful board game design, which was selected out of over 200k entries. Speaking about his design, he said:
" I like playing board games with my family, they are fun and you learn how to take turns. My family loves playing Monopoly the best, but Mum or Dad usually beat me and my brother!"
Oscar’s design will become the WOW badge for January and will be awarded to pupils in over 2,000 schools across the UK who travel actively to school during the month of January.
Since taking part in WOW, more pupils at Birkhill Primary are travelling in an active way with just 14 per cent being driven all the way to the school gates in January. Tayside and Central Scotland Transport Partnership (TACTRAN) fund the initiative at the school.
Catherine Woodhead, Chief Executive, Living Streets said:
“WOW is a fantastic way to keep pupils active each day while supporting their happiness and wellbeing. By choosing to walk to school, pupils are not only making healthier choices, but they are helping to reduce traffic at the school gates, creating safer and cleaner streets for everyone.
“Each year our WOW badge competition proves to be popular with children across the UK who love to get involved and share their wonderful designs with us. We asked pupils to create badge designs inspired by something that makes them happy and Oscar’s design certainly made us smile.
“Congratulations, Oscar! Your joyful design will be proudly worn by school children across Scotland, England and Wales.”
Neil Quinney, Active Travel Project Officer, Dundee City Council said:
“TACTRAN are proud to support Living Streets WOW – Walk to School Challenge across the region with funding from Transport Scotland’s People and Place Programme.
The WOW Challenge is a fun and interactive initiative that school children and parents alike can get involved with which helps support everyday active and sustainable journeys to school. The delight and joy on show from the pupils during the Living Streets visit highlights how this kind of work helps make the school run safer, healthier, and more enjoyable.”
Jenni Athey, Deputy Head Teacher, Birkhill Primary School, said:
“We have been lucky enough to have been funded to take part in WOW – the walk to school challenge from Living Streets for the last few years.
Our children love recording the way they travel to school and collecting their WOW badges. We are thrilled for Oscar that his badge was chosen for January 2026, he created such a bright attractive design.
"We are so proud of him and his achievement. We can't wait to share his badge with our school community and hope that it encourages everyone to continue to make active journeys to school.”