Our school has the TAG ON system. The system promotes being active through tagging on and awarding points to the kids school house.

Not only does this give my 10 year old son the incentive to be active but the system also has given me the confidence to let my son ride to school on his own. The system sends me an email to advise that he has arrived at school.

My son had been asking me for some time to let him ride on his own to school. This is a 10-15 min bike ride from our house and across a major road.

Whilst I felt that he was a safe rider I was still worried about his safety. People coming out of driveways etc. I really did not feel able to let him ride to school on his own without checking that he made the trip ok. The email that I get from the system, gives me the peace of mind knowing that he has arrived safely.

Being able to have this independence has been so good for his confidence. I think that the knock on effect of this has been his belief in himself. His ability to deal with issues on his own, feeling of pride in being given the responsibility and his general happiness has improved greatly.

This one small thing has made a big difference for him.

Without the TAG ON system I don’t think, in truth, I would have been as willing to allow him to ride to school on his own. That meant that I would either drive him to school or ride with him. As riding to school is not possible for me every day it would mean maybe once or twice a fortnight he would be active.

Now he rides to school every day with the exception of days with very bad rain.