Angie Murchison, Pupil Support Assistant at Hazlehead Primary School in Aberdeen is the Bikeability Scotland Instructor of the Year 2024. We spoke to Angie about how Bikeability is delivered at the school and her personal approach to training.
My name is Angie Murchison. I'm a pupil support assistant at Hazlehead Primary School in Aberdeen. I also deliver all the Bikeability that happens in our school.
I deliver Bikeability one and Bikeability two. And we also do Learn to Ride for kids in the upper stages of the school, so P4, 5, 6 and 7 who haven't yet learned to ride. The Learn to Ride we do in conjunction with Adventure Aberdeen but the Bikeability we deliver ourselves.
We definitely prioritise Bikeability and cycling at the school. It's really nice for me personally, but also for the school to get this award because it is really an award for the school and the priority that they have given to getting every kid to be able to ride a bike by the time they leave primary seven. Also, on the importance they’ve placed on everybody having had some cycle training and making everybody safe.
We're set right on the edge of Aberdeen in a suburban area. There are main roads going right past our school. Pupils in our school will live on Anderson Drive which is the main ring road around the city. The immediate area around the school could be quite busy, but we usually walk 10 minutes into the residential area to do our Bikeability two training.
Some of those roads in that residential area can be quite busy. Sometimes the kids can get quite a shock when they're out on the road. I always think that's a good thing. They are with adults and it's safe and we're teaching them. I always say that's quite good.
We do the Bikeability two with the P7s. We do Bikeability one with the P5s and then if we've got P6s who only just learn to ride in P5 or P6, we'll do that with them as well.
It's quite a mixed area. We've got quite a lot of pupils who don't have their own bike. This can be because they live in tower blocks that don’t have storage facilities, they can’t afford a bike or because it is just something their family doesn’t do.
I have actually got eight going out on Monday to learn to ride. I’m looking forward to that. Hopefully we get some of them riding by the end of the day. Last year's P7s, who just went up to the academy, every pupil could ride a bike and that's been the case for a couple of years now.
We've also got some kids in the school who have got additional support needs. One of the things we try and do is get them riding. We've got a couple of pupils, actually one who left last year and one who left the year before, who were pupils with Additional Support Needs, and it took quite a few years to get them riding. But by the end of P7 they were riding their bikes. So that was great.
It gives them a real sense of achievement, but also for their parents as well. They're riding their bikes like other kids and its good exercise for them. Parents can take them to the park and they can ride their bike because those kids maybe can't necessarily go and join a football team or a rugby team or go to tennis or whatever.
They can use it for transport. We have a number of pupils who use their bikes to get to and from school.
Where we are on the edge of the city there is a big forest a couple of miles away. During COVID, myself and the headteacher took the kids mountain biking in the forest and it was so good because some of the kids, even though it's two miles from our school, had never been in the forest or they'd never thought to take their bike in the forest. We had some great afternoons cycling around the forest with these kids doing mountain biking.
A couple of weeks later, they’d be like, “I went to the forest with my dad at the weekend”. Or “Me and some of the other boys went up the forest.” It's just opened the opportunity of a new leisure activity. It's on their doorstep but they never would have thought to do that.
I can’t credit the headteacher and the staff at the school enough for being so supportive of anything to get the kids active. They prioritise Bikeability and opportunities to be active in the school, I just deliver some of it.
It's really exciting when you teach a kid to ride a bike. There were two pupils last year who took quite a wee while to get it. And when you see their faces, when they do get it. You can't beat that. It’s amazing.
We’ve kids in this school that say, “Miss Murchison taught me to ride my bike”. If you think how many kids I've taught to ride a bike. It’s really good. They won't forget that. I won't forget that.
There's one lad, who must be in about S4 now, who I taught to ride his bike when he was in P7. He was a very anxious boy. I often see him riding his bike now and he always gives me a wee wave as he rides past.
Everyone loves being outside. The kids are champing at the bit. We’ve only been back two weeks and they're like, “When are we getting Bikeability?” They obviously enjoy it. They want to do it and they want to learn stuff on their bikes.
When you're delivering the Bikeability to the P7s you say to them, “Some of the stuff you'll need to learn to drive a car, you can learn all this stuff now. Then in, you five or six years when you come to learn to drive a car, you'll have a heads up on a lot of people.” That always engages them.
The whole Bikeability programme gives all kids confidence, but for the pupils who can't ride a bike and then suddenly do, it gives them a big boost.
I'm not out there on my own. Currently I work together with my colleague Irene Mathieson. She's been my Bikeability partner for a couple of years, so we’re in it together. I've also had a lot of help over the years from Rachael Gaunt and Emma Mair, who are also PSAs in the school. Sometimes I have some parent helpers. But it's mostly just the two of us that’s out doing it and we take a group of eight out at a time.
I think I'm quite a chill person, who is happy and confident riding a bike on the road. That maybe helps. When I've had other people fill in for one of my colleagues, they can be a bit nervous. Afterwards, once they've been out and they see how it all runs, they're like, “Oh, that was okay.” You just need to get out there and do it.
The pupils realise that they are on the road and something could happen. So, I think they always perk up, and kids who you might think would be messing about or not paying attention suddenly become aware.
