Get into gear for the Festival of Cycling – Sunday 2 September

A renowned free event, the York Festival of Cycling will return once again on Sunday 2 September.

The event has something for the whole family with all sorts of pedal powered activities for people to take part in.

There will be bikes and trikes of all shapes and sizes including adapted bikes, balance bikes and tandems for people to test ride on the day.

BMX stunt team ‘Savage Skills’ will be performing throughout the day showing some of the amazing stunts and tricks that can be done on two wheels. There will also be ‘The AirBag’ for BMXers to try out their own airborne tricks without the worry of a hard landing.

North Yorkshire Police will be on hand with their state of the art ‘dot peen’ property marking machine. They will be security marking cycles and other valuable items during the day free of charge.

Re-Cycle York will be providing a Doctor Bike service at the event to give festival attendees a free health check of their bike. Get Cycling, The Cycle Airbag, York Greenways and Bike Belles will also be there on the day with information and advice.

The i-Travel York team will also be available to provide travel advice and information for residents to encourage them to try out sustainable modes of travel, including cycling and walking. For more information visit www.itravelyork.info

York students congratulated on their GCSE (Key Stage 4) results

Pupils, parents, teachers and children’s services leaders are today (Thursday 23 August) congratulating learners across the city on achieving excellent GCSE results.

The results follow significant changes in the grading system in the last two years, which saw a grading system of 9-1 introduced in English language, English literature and mathematics last year, being rolled out to 20 more subjects this year.

Provisional results show that 70.6% of pupils gained grade 4+ in English and maths which is expected to be above the national average.

Grade 5+ in English and maths are in line with last year’s results, and also expected to be above the national average.

Additionally, the average points score for six core subjects (known as the English Baccalaureate or EBacc) is 4.56 in York this year. Pupils who gain grade 9-4 in English, maths, two science subjects, a modern foreign language and a humanities subject achieve EBacc.