A NOVEL way to boost children's health is being launched - getting pupils to collect Walk Miles.

Students at Broadmayne First School will score points every time they ditch the car and pound the streets on their way to class.

Road safety chiefs at Dorset County Council hope the project will motivate young people into boosting their health.

Bosses behind the plan at the Knighton Lane school say the novel idea could be extended across the region if successful.

Broadmayne head Anne Clark said the school's 116 pupils will be given score charts and awarded points for every mile they walk.

Mrs Clark said: "The pupils' first target is to climb the equivalent of Mount Everest before the end of term - for which they'll need 9,000 points.

"Our pupils are aged between four and nine years old and we hope this scheme will encourage them to walk to school by setting them a target."

She said pupils will not be given individual prizes but the school has set its four to nine-year-old students a total to smash.

"We hope this will influence the way they look at the world and improve not only their overall fitness but the environment by cutting down pollution," she said.

"We're not offering pupils individual prizes because some pupils will walk far greater distances to school than others.

"But hopefully we will motivate more pupils to walk to school rather than take the car and everyone taking part will get a certificate."

The Walk Miles scheme was the brainchild of teaching assistant Jane Bartlett whose inspiration came after roadworks in Knighton Lane led to many more pupils walking to school.

She said: "It had been such a pleasure for the children to walk up the road together during the roadworks, so I suggested that maybe there was no reason why we could not encourage the children to continue walking, even when the road was open again."

Robert Smith, Dorset County Council's Walk To School project manager, said the scheme is the first of its kind in the county and similar projects are set to be introduced at other schools.

"We have identified that pester-power is a great tool in changing parents' driving habits and the school has come up with a novel idea to keep the momentum going," he said.

Mrs Smith added that the scheme would also be open to any pupils who travel large distances to school.

"We understand that some pupils simply have to travel into school by car simply because the school is in a rural location," she said. "So we've adapted the scheme accordingly and those children will win points by walking sensibly around the school playground 10 times."