Annual report & accounts 2025-26
Education and training
Early years cycle skills - Play on Pedals
Play on Pedals is a training programme that supports and develops the cycling skills of nursery-aged children. Through a series of fun and imaginative activities, children develop their balance and control skills, using balance and pedal bikes.
Aimed at pre-school children, Play on Pedals has strong links to the Curriculum for Excellence covering different areas within early level.
In 2025-26, more than 12,500 children took part in Play on Pedals – starting, for many, the beginning of their cycling journey.
Cycling Scotland received Transport Scotland funding to train 369 early years practitioners as Play on Pedals Instructors and distributed over £117,000 to 16 local authorities to support activities helping children learn to ride at nursery. Funding was also awarded to some local authorities for pilot sessions of learn to ride in P1-P3 sessions.
In 2025-26, over 12,500 children took part in Play on Pedals - starting, for many, the beginning of their cycling journey
Case study
Papdale Nursery, Orkney
With support from Cycling Scotland and Orkney Island Council, Papdale Nursery in Kirkwall, Orkney, has been able to introduce Play on Pedals – helping encourage more active living among kids and parents alike.
Caroline Wishart, Early Years Practitioner at Papdale Nursery, shared the impact of the training.
“It was very important to me and my colleagues that we start offering Play on Pedals sessions at the nursery.”
“Three of our team were able to take part in a day-long Play on Pedals training, learning some games and how to go through bike safety ‘M-checks’ with the kids. On the back of that, we received new balance and pedal bikes and helmets to use in the sessions.”
Image: children at Papdale Nursery in Orkney ride their bikes during a Play on Pedals session
Play on Pedals was also a great opportunity to engage with parents on the benefits of cycling.
“We had great support with many parents joining us every day. We even had one or two parents come in on bikes!”
During one of the sessions, I was speaking to a parent who was delighted we were getting the children on their bikes and getting them active generally.
Inspired by the success of the first sessions and the interest, Caroline and her team set parents a challenge, asking them to record how many miles they walked, scooted or cycled (on push or balance bikes) as a family through January.
The aim was to match the length of the Orkney coastline, 570 miles, but collectively the group ended up clocking in more than 2,400 miles in total, through an increased number of active daily trips in the local area.
We kept hearing from families that more and more of our children were transitioning to pedal bikes.
As a result of all our hard work, we are seeing more and more children and parents coming to nursery every day on their bikes. Some days we’ve had more than a third of children arriving by bike.
There’s the obvious health and wellbeing aspect of getting out, building confidence, demonstrating how to travel safely, and learning how to stay active and healthy.
We are keen to keep developing our bike play and it really has become part of our normal everyday nursery experience.
