18 March 2022
Pupils at a Church of England primary in South Weald have been the driving force behind the school’s journey towards environmental sustainability.
Often children and young people are the most aware of the need to reduce our environmental impact, and after a group of pupils St Peter’s Church of England Primary School ran a worship session on caring for the environment and highlighted the problem of plastic pollution, the school was inspired to think about how they could work towards sustainability.
The school is part of the Eco-Schools programme - a pupil-led way to get schools and wider communities involved in environmental projects. As part of the programme, St Peter’s has established a pupil ECO-club which put together an environmental action plan for the school. As part of this plan, they campaign to switch devices off and ensure lights are turned off when not in use to save energy.
Speaking about how the school began their environmental journey, Headteacher at St Peter’s, Iain Gunn said:
We started by making small changes, like using reusable cups at lunch and establishing a weekly litter pick around the village. We also changed our end of term balloon release after a very heartfelt presentation by our children.”
The school now recycles old clothes, batteries, crisp bags as well as plastic and paper. In the last year the school has also switched to LED lighting, fitted solar panels, and installed a ground heat source pump to heat their swimming pool. There are future plans to replace the school’s main boiler and fit more solar panels.
Iain continues:
I’m really proud of our pupils who are passionate about ensuring we play our part as a school community in caring for God’s creation. I’m delighted we are on course to achieve ECO-School bronze status and that is thanks to the hard work of our pupils. We are looking strategically at how we become carbon neutral by 2030 alongside all parts of the Church of England.”
