A PRIMARY school was riding high as it was crowned the winners of the Big Pedal competition.

Pupils at St Mary's CofE Primary School in Yew Tree Road journey completed the most journeys to school by bike or scooter in Slough to be crowned this year's winners.

The school was awarded its prizes of a bicycle trailer and a bicycle bubble machine.

The Big Pedal competition is organised by Sustrans, whose Bike It officer Victoria Willis said: "St Mary's has been working so hard to promote cycling and active travel to school and absolutely deserve to have won the Big Pedal in Slough.

"I am delighted to award them with their prizes and hope that the pupils enjoy using them as special treats.

"It could not have been achieved without the help of the school travel 'Bike It' champions Shona Melvin and especially Daria Laskawiec who really drove the project, not to mention our pupil helpers.

"To have reached such high cycling and levels is testament to how a positive school culture can make all the difference. I look forward to awarding them with their Sustrans Silver School Mark in the near future."

Thirteen schools participated in the Slough area, with 68.71 per cent of St Mary's pupils scooting or riding to school - the highest in the town, the fourth best in the south east and 50th best in the whole country.

The school carried out several fun activities during the competition in order to drum up enthusiasm, for example a free breakfast offered to cyclists and scootists, a bike wash event to raise funds for other bike related activities and time trial races where pupils competed to have the quickest time of laps of the field, with medals presented to the fastest pupils.

The Big Pedal award is added to the Walk to School crown the school picked up last year after more pupils walked to St Mary's than any other in Slough.

The Big Pedal is a national inter-school cycling and scooting challenge where schools compete to have the most number of journeys made to school by bike or scooter.

This year the Big Pedal took place between April 18 and 29 and had 1,680 schools across the United Kingdom participate.

Sustrans is a sustainable transport charity that is responsible for the National Cycle Network for cyclists, and The Bike Hub, which funded the competition, is a cycle industry initiative which invests in projects in order to safeguard the future of cycling.