Transcripts: Prettygate Junior School
- Are you working to make your school greener?
Yes, we are trying to do lots of small things rather than bigger things though.
- What are you doing / have you done?
There are 'green sack' and 'black sack' bins in every room which indicate recycling and non-recycling bins. The main use of these is for paper recycling.
Plastics from the staff room are taken home by one of the teachers and recycled, however they are trying to persuade the Council not to charge the industrial cost for collecting plastics,
this will mean that the school can recycle all its plastics.
The schools is gradually reducing paper usage by a number of schemes:
- Posting school newsletters online instead of having a paper copy for each child to take home.
- Encouraging increased laptop useage by teachers so that there is a hard copy and no paper copies.
- Duplex photocopying. This would also apply to printing but the printers don't support duplexing.
The school has a garden area in which each year has a plot where they can grow things such as sunflowers or vegetables.
There is a 'fruit only' rule in place for breaktimes and the remains are composted in the garden area.
The 'fruit only' rule means that there is much less litter of things such as crisp packets.
Many trees have been planted around the school fields - some of these are memory trees for previous staff,
but the children have helped to plant these trees, including in previous years.
The school was recently fitted with lower energy fluorescent tube lights provided by the council.
Children are encouraged to walk or cycle to school - this helps to reduce congestion and pollution around the school.
The school will soon be getting a 'Bertie Bin' which will be used for collecting old shoes and clothes which can then be sent to developing countries.
- Are green issues covered in time-tabled lessons or extra-curricular sessions (tutorials)?
Yes, they are covered in science lessons and also in PSHE lessons where the children discuss the rights and wrongs of things in 'community activities'
The children also learn about the current barriers for things such as recycling in the hope that sometime in the future this may help the children to break them down.
- Do students support you in this mission?
Yes, the student council raises many ideas on things the school could undertake and the whole student body is very conscious of the need to recycle etc.
The students also help to run recycling campaigns within the school.
- Is it something your school takes very seriously?
Yes, it has become part of the school ethos.
The school believes that it is important for children to learn about being green at a young age, the more that is done now the more information is taken home to parents.
- Do you think you would benefit from external assistance in making your school greener?
If so, in what?
You have to consider whether the funding will be worthwhile to the school after the amount of time it can take to actually receive it.
There are one or two grants available to primary schools however they seem to involve jumping through lots of hoops to get a little money.
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