School pupils and their families in Oxfordshire are being invited to join in the fun of using new free smartphone app that offers rewards for exercise.
Called Street Tag, the app is being highlighted at the launch of this year’s National Walk to School Week between 5-9th October.
Street Tag is a family-friendly game app that rewards primary school pupils, communities and schools for their physical activities such as walking, running, cycling, among a number of other fitness activities.
The app turns physical activity into a game and converts steps or exercise into Street Tag points known as tags. It can even sync with Fitbit devices.
Funded by Oxfordshire County Council as part of its active travel plans to increase exercise and improve air quality, Street Tag is aimed at children, parents schools, leisure venues and community groups. It will also involve the use of outdoor spaces and school staff.
Oxfordshire County Council is supporting Street Tag to bring people together to participate in outdoor physical activities, by turning streets into a giant virtual playground matched by guidance by the interactive smartphone app. The app can also be used for indoor exercise.
The technology of the app also means that players can remain safely socially distanced from one another.
It is hoped that the app will help children to embed regular exercise into their daily lives be it through walking or cycling to school or as part of wider leisure time. It also directly encourages children to achieve their daily 30 active minutes as well as allowing users to connect with local green spaces and reconnect with their area.
An additional benefit is that it will help encourage communities to adopt active lifestyles as the norm including making cycling and walking part of a way of keeping fit and as a means of socially distant travel.
The most active communities and schools will benefit from real rewards; those with the highest rates will be rewarded with £50 for Parent Teacher Associations of the top three leading schools in the district and rewards of sports equipment, Amazon vouchers and more for the highest scoring communities within each district.
When playing Street Tag, competitors record their distance walked, run or cycled by scanning virtual tags with their smartphone at various geographic locations, watching their total distance accumulate to climb up on the local leaderboard versus other players. Each game season lasts 12 weeks. In that time, competitors can vie with each other to hit the top of the leaderboard to become the winners.
After the first 12 weeks there will be two more seasons for players to get to the top of the Street Tag Oxfordshire School Games leaderboard over the year. Smaller schools can partner with other small schools so that they are on a more level footing with larger primary schools.
Cllr Yvonne Constance, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet member for Environment said: “The launch of Street Tag is good news for Oxfordshire’s schools and communities as we encourage children and families to enjoy being active as part of daily life. The fact that the app will incentivise children to walk to and from schools is good for the whole community; it will mean cleaner air, less congestion and healthier, fitter residents.
“The Street Tag game is a real win for schools and communities in Oxfordshire.”
How does Street Tag work?
You can either take part in your Street Tag Oxfordshire School Games leaderboard or the community leaderboard.
Schools can sign up by emailing [email protected] or fill an online form at streettag.co.uk/schools.
To sign up to the Community Leaderboard
- Install the app, create a team and join the leaderboard
Earn points from physical activities indoor and outdoor- walking, running, cycling by scanning virtual tags and convert your steps into Street Tag PointsGet ready to push the boundaries and start your journey to a healthy lifestyle with Street Tag.
For more information on Street Tag, visit: www.streettag.co.uk
Find Street Tag on the Play Store, App Store, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
