Within our trust, we recognise our responsibility to ensure that pupils and young people are prepared for a world impacted by climate change and understand how our actions can impact upon our local surroundings and the rapidly changing global environment. We have a significant role to play, both in taking action within the Trust, and becoming agents of change in society to drive greener futures.
The purpose of our Climate Change and Sustainability Strategy is to identify and explore the opportunities that we will take collective action against in order to secure maximum impact and reduce the adverse effects of climate change, to support sustainable futures and environmental resilience. We want our children and communities to experience a better environment now and for generations to come.
Here are some of the initiatives we have launched in school to help with this strategy.
Kit Car Project
The Kit Car project enabled our children to be part of a local eco-friendly project in conjunction with Perkins Engineering.
Following a successful application, our school were selected to link with Perkins Engineering, to build and design their own kit car. Our children had to apply for the opportunity to be in the kit car team and give reasons about why they felt passionate about being part of this project.
Our successful applicants then worked alongside engineers from Perkins to construct the car and designed its outer shell. As you can see from the video, they chose a “Bee Friendly” design to link with our school’s bee friendly status.
Watch the clip to see it in action and hear more about the design process.
Allotment
We are proud to have both an onsite and off-site allotment linked to our school.
We worked with our school and wider community to create poly tunnels and raised flowerbeds on site. This has given us designated space to plant and grow plants, fruit and vegetables. Our aims for this area are to encourage children to understand key life skills and how to maintain a sustainable lifestyle. This is in line with our curriculum that encourages children to understand the features of
Our Science Garden
Our science garden was created in memory of the late Keith Hollins, our former SUAT CEO. We wanted to create an interactive outdoor space where children could immerse themselves into outdoor learning opportunities. Within this, we have a pond area, bee and insect houses and flower beds. This gives a wide range of opportunities for ecosystem investigation. Our children have planned sessions to complete activities in this area and we have a weekly eco club that give an opportunity for children to complete eco based projects.
Forest School Area
Our purpose designed forest school area is designed to reflect sustainability aims. We have bug hotels, a fire pit area, wooden huts and wild flowers. Each year group have the opportunity to complete forest school sessions which are planned with a consideration of progression of skills and understanding. We recognise the importance of outdoor learning on fostering creativity and sparking imagination and sim to do this throughout these sessions. Our children enjoy den building, fire lighting and even cooking their own bread and marshmallows.
Recycling Aims
You will see on our playground that we have ‘ladybird bins’ positioned around the playground to encourage children to recycle. Each classroom has paper recycling bins and we have a team of children that are responsible for encouraging and collecting our school paper recycling.