Scottish pupil celebrates national WOW design competition win

A schoolgirl from Kirkcaldy is celebrating after beating 90,000 primary school in a UK wide design competition.  

The P6 pupil from Capshard Primary School entered the WOW badge design competition from Living Streets. 

Primary school pupils nationwide entered the competition, with winners being chosen by a panel of experts from the Design Council.  

Imogen, aged 10, and her fellow pupils were joined by Councillors James Leslie and David Ross (Kirkcaldy North) and Living Streets mascot Strider on Kinghorn beach in Fife to celebrate the winning design of Inchkeith lighthouse. 

Councillor James Leslie (Kirkcaldy North) said: 

''Congratulations to Imogen on winning the Living Streets Scotland prize with her picture of Inchkeith lighthouse. This brought back many happy memories of talks with my grandfather who serviced the guns on the island in the 1930s and 1940s and the stories he told me about the soldiers based there. On foggy nights I still remember listening to the foghorn on the island while lying in bed at my grandparents’ house.” 

Chris Thompson, Project Manager at Living Streets Scotland, 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.   

“We hope this set of WOW badges will help pupils understand that by walking to school they are playing their part in fighting climate change – protecting wildlife and natural habitats for the future.”  

Mrs Gillian Mann, Headteacher at Capshard Primary School, said: 

“I am absolutely thrilled that Imogen's badge design won the competition. At Capshard, we promote active travel to school and Imogen's part in encouraging other pupils to walk, cycle or scoot to school is invaluable in promoting this important health and sustainability message.”  

This year's WOW theme is The British Nature Walk. This theme aims to bring pupils closer to the nature found across Britain! From spritely foxes to woolly cows – there’s a badge for every young nature enthusiast. As pupils walk to school through the year they will learn and collect badges depicting urban and rural British landscapes and animals. 

The winning designs will be turned into more than 300,000 badges to be awarded to pupils across Scotland, England and Wales taking part in WOW – the walk to school challenge.  

Over 150 primary schools in Scotland take part in WOW, which rewards children who walk, wheel, cycle, scoot or ‘Park and Stride’ to school with pupils recording their active journeys using the interactive WOW Travel Tracker. 

In Scotland, WOW schools see on average a 5-10 per cent increase in pupils walking to school with a corresponding drop in car use, helping to reduce congestion and increase safety outside the school gates.  

If your school would like to get involved with the WOW Walk to School challenge or you would like to find out more, please contact scotschools@livingstreets.org.uk