About Bike Ed

Riding a bike is a life skill that helps Victorians to move about their local community, travel to school or work, save money, build fitness, improve independence, and make social connections.

This site contains links that can help children, parents, teachers and potential instructors) to improve their own riding ability and be able to deliver high quality programs that extend these benefits to the broader community.

The Bike Ed Program has been redeveloped to modernise the curriculum and extend Bike Ed to cover a wider audience.

School program

The Bike Ed school program is designed to build the skills of riders progressively from the early years of primary school through to secondary school. It integrates with the Victorian Curriculum and has been specifically developed to be delivered in Victorian schools.

This program has been tested and evaluated in schools and is supported by the TAC and Department of Transport, Victoria. The learning material has undergone reviews from schools, expert teaching groups, including the Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation (ACHPER).

Bike Ed contains all of the unit plans, lesson plans and teaching resources needed to make implementing bike riding education in schools as easy as possible. The only resources required by the school are common PE equipment like cones, as well as bikes and helmets.

Who can run Bike Ed?

The Bike Ed school program is designed to be delivered by PE teachers within the school environment. The program is based around activities to keep the students engaged and provide specific teaching points to help teacher communicate the skills required to students as they require them.

But it doesn’t have to be delivered by PE teachers or other school staff. If you want, your school could engage an external provide to deliver Bike Ed for you. There are a number of providers of bike education across the state, refer to the list of contacts on the Road Safety Education website.

Most units build up to a final ride outside of the school grounds. The Department of Education and Training requires that each of these rides must have at least one Bike Ed accredited leader, plus a minimum ratio of adults (other teachers or parent helpers) to students. If you want to become accredited, you can undertake an instructor training course.

Bike Ed units

There are four key units in the school program: 

Unit 1: Years 1-2

Becoming a bike rider

Teaches the basic skills of bike riding and road safety, and how to apply these skills to simple scenarios.

Unit 2: Years 3-4

Getting ready to ride on paths

Develops riding and safety skills further and start to implement these to simple decisions on bike paths and footpaths. Includes dealing with hazards on paths and planning a journey.

Unit 3: Years 5-6

Getting ready to ride on roads

Work more independently to hone their riding skills, safety skills and make road user decision on roads and intersections. Includes dealing with hazards on roads and planning a journey.

Unit 4: Years 7-8

Riding independently

Work more independently to hone their riding skills and on-road safety and behaviours and includes bike maintenance skills.

The updated school program has been developed and piloted/tested successfully in school settings, with positive feedback from students, parents and teachers regarding the updated program and the new materials are ready for launch.

• Teachers reported high levels of enjoyment of Bike Ed and substantial benefits for students who participated in the program.
• The new Bike Ed program was considered by teachers to be a well-resourced program—in particular the detailed Bike Ed lesson plans (incorporating video resources, class discussions, worksheets, bike riding games, bike riding activities, and class rides outside school).