Star Rating for Schools: Five Years of Global Impact

2025 marked a milestone year for the Star Rating for Schools (SR4S) programme, celebrating five years of global impact and collaboration.

The anniversary was recognised in early 2025 alongside partners from around the world at the 4th Global Ministerial Conference in Morocco.

As the year drew to a close, SR4S proudly congratulated our school partners for completing assessments at nearly 2,500 schools across 84 countries.

These assessments are informing critical road upgrades that are helping to protect more than half a million children every day.

Throughout 2025, SR4S continued to benefit from strong partnerships with FIA Club members and CHI Advocacy Hub partners, leading to school zone improvements in Bolivia, Botswana, Chile, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova and Peru.

Furthermore, long-standing advocacy by school partners in Georgia, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Vietnam was recognised internationally, with these partners receiving the prestigious 2025 Prince Michael Awards.

SR4S also strengthened our engagement in national advocacy efforts aimed at reducing child road traffic fatalities and injuries, notably in Cambodia and Vietnam, reinforcing the programme’s role in shaping safer school environments at policy and practice levels.

Innovation remained at the heart of SR4S in 2025. The flagship AI&Me framework, comprising Big Data Screening, Youth Engagement App (YEA) and SR4S, has been expanded to Indonesia. Collaboration with founding sponsor FedEx was rejuvenated through support for the Caminho Seguro project in Brazil, the first tactical urbanism initiative in Porto Alegre featuring educational street art. Significant upgrades to the Youth Engagement App (YEA) were also completed, followed by successful new pilots in Chile, South Africa and Peru.

Looking Ahead to 2026

The coming year will align with the launch of the UN Decade of Sustainable Transport (2026–2035). SR4S will respond by integrating bicycle star rating into the platform alongside the existing pedestrian star rating, enabling more comprehensive assessments of active mobility infrastructure surrounding schools. Simultaneously, new functions leveraging advances in artificial intelligence will be introduced to improve the efficiency and scalability of large-scale assessments.

As 2025 concludes, SR4S acknowledges the essential support of the Founding Sponsor, FedEx, Major Donor FIA Foundation, and Global Programme Partner Prudence Foundation. We also thank Fondation Botnar, Google.org, and our SR4S Lead Partners for their invaluable contributions. These partnerships have generated inspiring examples of how coordinated action can transform school safety across diverse contexts and communities around the globe.