Waste Watch

Sustainable Schools is a flagship Waste Watch development programme, using schools as a living example of sustainable resource use.

A Sustainable School is a place where pupils, staff and the local community can:

• learn together about how their actions impact on their environment
• build the skills to participate in a sustainable future
• act to improve management of resources at school, at home and in the community

What's different about Sustainable Schools?

Sustainable Schools provides a comprehensive framework of objective, environmental assessment and a diverse range of ongoing, hands-on, activities to embed behavioural change into every aspect and function of a school and its community, allowing environmentally sustainable behaviour to be established, integrated and retained.

Supported by Waste Watch, pupils and staff (teaching and non-teaching) initiate, develop and lead activities that engage and involve children, developing their key life skills whilst inspiring and empowering them to adopt (and share with their families) more environmentally sustainable behaviour.

We take a fresh, systematic approach that harnesses the potential of the school community to:

• Embed a self-sustaining Environmental Management System into the school and ensures continuous monitoring and improvement
• Save energy costs of up to 20% for the first year
• Reduce and manage carbon
• Support through the National Framework for Sustainable Schools
• Provide innovative learning opportunities, for and beyond the core curriculum, helping to develop pupil's key life skills
• Develop staff's knowledge, skills and capacity on environmental sustainability
• Help pupils and local volunteers to improve their local environment and build community cohesion

The school also acts as a beacon for the local community, helping and empowering local people to improve their own environment.

Our approach
We aim to work with a school for three years, as we believe lasting change needs long-term commitment and support. We work with groups of primary and secondary schools, in a close proximity to one another, so they can share knowledge on how to reduce their environmental impact and learn from each other.

We use a whole-school approach, involving staff, senior management and pupils, helping them to understand, plan, enable, act, check, improve, share and celebrate. Throughout the programme, there will be an ongoing emphasis on monitoring and evaluation to support the process of continual improvement and to ensure opportunities to celebrate success.

Environmental sustainability is a global issue: appealing to, and inclusive of, people of all cultures and backgrounds. Activities within the project are designed to be accessible to all pupils, regardless of ability, ensuring that there are no barriers to pupils' achievements. Many of the measures required to reduce resources usage are simple, practical and hands on.

We start by giving the school a comprehensive environmental health check, assessing the initial environmental footprint and comparing it with other schools locally and nationally.

We then draw up a Sustainability Action Plan together which fits with and expands on any existing environmental activities in the school. The focus of the Action Plan for the first year is on energy and waste, coupled with ongoing support and recommendations for low or no cost areas of improvement.

Cost
Cost is assessed for each school depending on the size of the school, its needs and its current practices. We strongly support cluster work with schools in your local area. Please contact us for further details.

Long Term Benefits
England's 25,000 schools are uniquely positioned within communities to shape the behaviours of young people (tomorrow's decision makers). The information and evidence gathered from this development programme will contribute to a tried and tested model for Sustainable Schools that can be replicated nationally, across schools in all geographical and socio-economic areas.

With evidence of schools' successes and cost savings demonstrating the effectiveness of the model, Waste Watch intends to launch the model, enabling other organisations (NGOs, educators, charities, local authorities etc) to facilitate the programme in their local areas. We intend to enable and encourage as many schools as possible to implement the programme, maximising the change to environmentally sustainable behaviour in schools, their communities and the wider society.

Evidence already collected indicates the potential for schools to reduce both their resource consumption and financial expenditure. The value and power of the sustainability message which will be taken home by the thousands of children involved, both now and into the future as the model is replicated, is invaluable.

Evidence of Need

Schools are responsible for 15% of public sector carbon emissions, spending approximately £450 million on energy each year (three times as much as they spend on books). Food and drink account for between 20-30% of all environmental impacts within the EU-25 (European Commission 2006: Environmental Impact of Products).

Despite a rapid increase in participation in recycling schemes, 54% of our waste still ends up in landfill sites, and earth's precious raw materials are running out at an alarming rate.

Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) research shows that schools throw out 100,000 tonnes of food each year. By weight, food waste makes up 46% of all primary school waste and 31% of all secondary school waste. School Food Trust 2009 research reveals that a healthy diet has a direct impact on a child's ability to study - children who eat a healthy lunch are more focused and better able to learn.

Legal targets will not come into effect for schools until 2018. Westminster Sustainable Business Forum recognises that Partnership for Schools must focus on addressing behaviour change in daily school operations in addition to the design and building of schools in order to make them low-carbon.

Ofsted's 2008 report Schools and Sustainability concluded "most of the schools visited had limited knowledge of sustainability or of related initiatives. Work on sustainability tended to be piecemeal and uncoordinated, often confined to extra-curricular activities and special events rather than being an integral part of the curriculum. Therefore, its impact tended to be short-lived and limited to small groups of pupils".

Ofsted's December 2009 report Education for Sustainable Development states, "Learning about sustainability captured the interest of children and young people because they could see its relevance to their own lives. The most successful schools gave their pupils the opportunity to take part in a wide range of practical activities, both within and outside the classroom, and to initiate their own projects for improving sustainability. The pupils reacted very positively to being able to work collaboratively, to conduct research and to take part in debates and discussion. In several instances, this led to more positive attitudes to learning in general, better behaviour and attendance, and to improved standards and achievement."

The report continues "The most successful schools were able to show that an increased appreciation of the need to care for the environment also led pupils to take greater pride in the local environment. The pupils who were committed to sustainability in school tended to lead sustainable lives at home and there was increasing evidence of this leading to positive changes in their families' views and behaviour. The commitment, enthusiasm and initiative of young people were also a spur to members of the wider community to re-examine their own lifestyles."

"Waste Watch is providing the expert knowledge required to help us become a sustainable school. They have motivated us to kick start our action plan on reducing energy and increasing recycling".
Johnette Barrett - Headteacher Sellincourt Primary

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