Going Green
Schools go eco
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| Eco monitors at Leaden Hall School. DB3998P5 |
ECO-MONITORS Ellie and Annabel are going to be late for lessons.
The end of break bell rang a few minutes ago and they are still darting about because there is so much to show me - the veg patch, the plot for the biodegradable garden (bury things for a year and see what you dig up 12 months later), the green cone soakaway where they all throw their apple cores and shredded paper, the bird hide, and the blue tit nest with its hidden camera trained on three eggs.
Then there's the flag, tacked to the side of a classroom (made of sustainable wood, built on stilts, copper roofed) which is their pride and joy.
Leaden Hall School is the only school in south Wiltshire to have attained the coveted Green Flag, which is the gold standard awarded by the Eco-Schools programme.
The programme is administered by campaigning environmental charity ENCAMS to encourage pupils to take responsibility for the future of their environment and to learn what measures can be taken to help safeguard the planet.
Joining the scheme is free and schools then work towards attaining three awards - bronze, silver and the prestigious Green Flag.
The first two are self-accredited but the Green Flag is assessed by ENCAMS and, as an organisation, it is no pushover and its standards are high.
Evidence of whole school involvement in addressing a variety of environmental issues - energy, litter, waste minimisation, water, transport, healthy living, biodiversity and global perspective - has to be shown.
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| Ringwood School eco group: Katrina Miller, Jess Parker, Katherine Fleckney and Fiona Salisbury. DB4008P2 |
Eco-monitors, elected representatives in each class (although anyone who wants to get involved can and does), meet weekly - and they know their stuff.
Eco-monitors, I was told by the incumbents, turn lights off, monitor people's progress towards going green or doing better things for the environment like shutting doors when you go out so that heat doesn't escape wasting energy resources, and make sure all the right waste is in the right recycling bin.
"The kids love it, they see the point of it," says Leaden Hall's eco co-ordinator Sally Litherland.
"Eco-schools give you templates to fill out about your recycling, your electricity use and stuff like that and then it just takes off.
"One keen teacher can do it but you've got to have support from the governors down.
"We get the parents involved as much as possible, because it's not just a school issue, it's a whole life issue."
Parents have been persuaded to monitor their electricity and gas usage and give up plastic bags for Lent.
There is no doubting the children's enthusiasm for the programme and the messages behind it.
At Ringwood School, they have attained not one but two Green Flags, the only secondary school in Hampshire to do so.
Each tutor group has its elected eco-monitors, responsible for recycling and communication and the school's eco-group, I am told, is huge.
Year 8 pupils Katrina Miller, Jess Parker, Katherine Fleckney, Fiona Salisbury and Jenny Baldwin sit down to tell me why they got involved and how they have found common ground in one another's interests.
Fiona is mushroom-mad, for instance, and is currently cultivating oyster mushrooms using an old copy of Jane Austen's Emma as a growing medium.
"Mushrooms growing up on a good book," quips Jenny Baldwin, who runs an eco-blog on the school's website.
It's another way to recycle old books, the girls point out.
The school has been involved in the eco-school idea for four years.
Biology teacher Gill Hickman, who heads up the programme in the school, says there was a trigger.
"Visiting a field study centre with a sixth form group, a student got angry and screwed up his piece of paper and chucked it at the bin.
"The person at the field study centre, without losing eye contact, picked up the bit of paper, smoothed it out and put it in the little tray that was labelled re-use'.
"It had real impact on the students - they all noticed and talked about it."
The eco movement at Ringwood School took root from this acorn and oak tree moment.
Now it stretches across the whole school, encompassing pupils, teachers and non-teaching staff.
So seriously is it taken that canteen manager Sarah Wood has just been presented with - and accepted - a wormery.
What can be composted is.
Everything is recycled - paper, stamps, batteries, CDs, printer cartridges, phones, glass, spectacles, plastic, corks, silver milk bottle tops and more.
Water monitoring is about to restart, Fairtrade and local food lunches are regular features, the school proudly boasts a C energy rating (most schools are E or at best D), a derelict pond area is being brought back to life, there's a small insect habitat close by, the vegetable patches are currently being planted and tended, and mint essential oil extraction was scheduled to start that afternoon.
The eco-group's ideas for rainwater harvesting and a climate change garden have just won a place in the finals of the Futures Group Schools' Project competition run by Hampshire County Council.
The girls say that what they are doing now will stay with them as they go through the school and beyond.
"It feels really worthwhile," they tell me.
"These kids carry messages out into the world," Mrs Hickman says, adding almost apologetically: "It sounds evangelical, but they do."
THE Ringwood eco group has visited the eco centre at Minstead ("very inspiring") and will be going there again in July to share its ideas with other schools.
It's part of an outreach programme starting on Thursday, May 15 and Ringwood says it would love to hear from other secondary schools in the area who want to link up with it.
Interested schools can contact Gill Hickman before May 15 at Ringwood School on 01425 475000.
11:07am Thursday 8th May 2008
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