70 per cent of the school's 250 students travelled to school by car, although the majority lived within one kilometre of the school.
The school began to create travel plans to reduce car congestion, education students as to why it was important and to provide scooter and cycle skills safety lessons, as well as making traffic or footpath changes around the school.
The council approached Henry Hill School in connection with the new shared iWay pathway He Rerenga Inanga (waterway of the whitebait) at the back of the school.
He Rerenga Inanga started at Harold Holt Ave south of the school, and had recently been extended all the way to Lipton Pl in Onekawa.
Traffic calming zones were then set up, and the students were introduced to Move It, a programme established by iWay rewarding students for walking, scooting or cycling to school.
Principal Jason Williams said he had no idea they had received an award until he received a notification on his cell phone a few days later.
"Naturally we were blown away by the award, but this isn't the reason why we put this initiative in place-it was for the safety of our students," he said.
"Usually before or after school we would get about 80 cars driving down our streets, clogging up driveways and causing congestion, now we're seeing about two cars, so it's just great."
Williams said parents were now parking further up the street or walking them to school themselves.
"You'd see a lot of frustration when parents were dropping their kids off because of the congestion. Now we see parents walking their kids to school in the pouring rain and they look perfectly happy, because it's just the actual pleasure of them spending time with their kids."
Although the safety strategies were set up by the school and the city council, Williams said it was the kids who were the real drivers.
"We were educating the kids on the importance of road safety and they actually took those messages home to their parents.
"Parents would be driving their kids to school and they would say 'Dad you can't park there' or 'you have to park further away' and their parents listened."
"Never underestimate the power of kids," Williams said.
Hastings District Council initiated iWay in 2010. NCC joined iWay in 2015, following a successful joint Hastings District and NCC application for Urban Cycleway Programme funding from central Government.