‘Green skills are a key part of our curriculum. It’s preparing our students to make something of themselves.’

Bridget Bircumshaw is a teaching and quality lead at Chesterfield College. We spoke to her about how they are embedding green skills into the curriculum at every level.

Can you give some background on your college?

We have about 6,000 students, mainly 16 to 18 year olds, plus 1,800 apprentices, 300 higher education students, 300 for adult provision and 560 members of staff.

What’s your role and what responsibilities do you have for climate change and sustainability?

I am a teaching and learning quality lead across the whole college, looking at quality improvement and assurance. I am also a teacher trainer. It’s my role to really drive green skills. It was something we wanted to bring in for development but it didn’t initially fit under my job description. It does now.

When Covid hit we had to get online really quickly, and we realised that as a sustainable educational system, digital enterprise was something that we needed to look at. So that was almost the seed that started where we were going to go. 

Why is sustainability important to you and your college?

We don’t call it sustainability, we call it green skills. Further education is all about skills. Sustainability tends to be thought of as about recycling and litter, and it can prevent people thinking about the wider picture. So we’ve rebranded it as green skills, and that’s what goes into our curriculum. It’s what we talk to employers about when we work with them on the curriculum and how our students develop their wider skills.

Have you had any training around sustainability or climate education?

I have just completed the NCFE level 2 climate change awareness and sustainability qualification. I have done the Education & Training Foundation’s mentor training for green skills, and I’ve been on the EAUC and FRESK training.

What activities have you undertaken at your college?

The first thing we did was set up a panel including people from across the college, from the CEO down. We meet regularly to work out how we’re going to follow the DfE road map

Then we turned one of our regular inset days into a sustainability day where staff and students all came in and learned from each other. We based it on the UNESCO seventeen global goals and we linked each of the goals to an area. By the end of the day everyone had an awareness of what climate justice is about. The following year we focused on wellbeing and life skills through the green skills lens. Our third year will concentrate on personal development and volunteering to support self and communities. 

In our curriculum, we have added green skills as one of the key pieces of the jigsaw. Childcare students learn about forest schools, and as part of that they made a hedgehog-friendly campus. When they did their placements, they took that learning to their nurseries or education centres. Our plumbing students did grey water harvesting, building a tank which collected rainwater that can be used to flush toilets.

Green skills are no longer something that stands outside the curriculum, it’s embedded throughout our curriculum. And it trickles down throughout the college. In hairdressing and beauty, we look at the products that we use. In catering, they only buy from a 20-mile radius now, cutting down on transport costs.

What barriers have you faced?

For staff, it’s time. ‘How am I going to do this? I haven’t got the skills to do that. I’m a brickie. I’m a hairdresser.’ We had to simplify it, strip it right back. It’s awareness you need, you don’t need a master’s degree in it. 

Our tutors are vocational specialists. Instead of observing and grading them, we’re giving them back their professionalism — saying, ‘You are the professional in this area, so show us what you want to do in a practical way. How will this support our learners?’

Working with employers and having their input into developing our curricula is highly important. Green skills are needed in so many different sectors. Students want to hear it from the horse’s mouth before you teach it to them. 

Do you think what you’ve done could be replicated in other FE institutions?

It is successful at our college because everybody from the board down has bought into it. It is a strategic strand. When attending events with other FE institutions, I notice that there are often hubs of people doing things but they haven’t got that whole organisational buy-in. So they’re always battling against it because although it’s a good idea, it’s seen as an add-on.

In the colleges where it is working, they all have very high-up buy-in. It’s brought up all the time at board meetings. It’s more and more important. From next year, we’ll need to show data showing that we are decarbonising the curriculum and the impact this has on teaching and learning assessment for our learners’ skills development and progression.

At our college, we want green skills to be the social purpose for our learners. We want them to have that added value to what they do in life, so they’re able to support themselves and give something back to their communities. We want our students to embrace change through green skills and personal development, not as a burden but as an opportunity to grow and innovate, honing their skills to match jobs out there that are just waiting to be invented.

‘Putting things in the right bins is not the mindset we need. Huge change needs to happen.’

Jess Rick is the environmental sustainability manager at The Sheffield College, a further education college with approximately 13,000 students who study vocational, academic and professional courses every year, including a sizeable adult education cohort. We spoke to her about how she is trying to embed sustainability throughout the college, from the buildings to the curriculum.

Can you give some background on your college?

The Sheffield College is a large general further education college. We have about 13,000 students on a variety of two-year, one-year and shorter courses. We have lots of access courses, there’s a higher education department and a sixth form, and we run a lot of apprenticeships too. We have several sites around Sheffield.

What’s your role and what responsibilities do you have for climate change and sustainability?

I’m the Environmental Sustainability Manager for the college. It’s a new post which sits in the estates department, but it’s a broad, cross-college role which includes the curriculum as well as the estate.

My role specifically supports the implementation and delivery of our Environmental Sustainability strategy that sets out the College’s objective of achieving Net Zero Carbon by 2040. I’m also responsible for helping our Academies to develop and build our “green” curriculum offer so that the skills needs of the future can be met.

Why is sustainability important to you and your college?

For me personally, it underpins everything. If we don’t have those basic ecosystems and the things that support life on the planet working properly, then nothing’s going to happen. It always comes back to the fact that we’ve got to survive.

In terms of the college, there’s a lot more emphasis on sustainability from the Department for Education. And of course there are many individual staff members who want to take action. And from the students’ point of view, they’re going to be living in our future world, so it’s really important that they have a functioning environment to live in.

Have you had any training around sustainability or climate education?

My background is environmental consultancy, from the estates side of things. I’m new to the education sector. Since I started here, I’ve done Carbon Literacy training, but for me it’s more about understanding the sector.

What activities have you undertaken at your college?

The first thing I needed to do when I started was to develop our Environmental Sustainability Action Plan, so I’ve used the FE (further education) roadmap framework for this. It encompasses teaching and learning, estates and operations, partnerships and engagement, reporting, and leadership and governance.

About 6 months after I started, we had a consultant come in for a week and spend time with all the curriculum teams. That highlighted lots of things that teachers are already getting on with in various courses. Quite a lot of the courses we run are inherently relevant, like land management and animal care. Many courses such as construction, catering and tourism include environmental content. Even the games development course had a project designing a tool for a company that removes plastics from the ocean.

A lot of the feedback we got from teachers was that if it’s not in the curriculum, it’s quite difficult to add extra content due to time constraints. But people are keen to use projects to include content on sustainability.

Our Building Technologies Academy have blazed a trail for us in terms of introducing new courses, because there is a lot of retrofitting going on around the city and a greater demand for things like installing heat pumps.

The other main feedback we got from the consultancy was that teachers need more training and more confidence to deliver content that they don’t know. So, we’re starting off with some Carbon Literacy training, but also looking at what CPD and industry-specific learning teachers need to be doing.

In terms of estates, we’ve made heat decarbonisation plans for the buildings. It’s not just the major investment pieces, but also the day-to-day operations, such as ensuring our major contracts include sustainability requirements.

We had an all-staff session on sustainability and people were talking about putting things in the right bins, but we need to think bigger! Huge change needs to happen. We need to think about what being sustainable means and where it sits in our priorities.

What barriers have you faced?

For teaching, it’s time, resources, training and confidence. For estates, it’s financial. It would take at least £10 million of investment over the next 15 years for us to fully decarbonise.

Another thing that’s been raised is that a lot of our students come to us with no knowledge of climate change or sustainability issues. Hopefully that’s going to change as it’s taught more in primary and secondary. Engagement with the students can be a barrier here because it’s difficult to get them interested in doing things outside of their course, as they’re working or busy.

Where do you find out about available funding and projects?

We’re members of the EAUC and get a lot of updates through that. I also find out about things through personal networking on LinkedIn and around Sheffield, talking to colleagues in other institutions.

Do you think what you’ve done could be replicated in other FE institutions?

I think so. A lot of the other colleges that I’ve spoken to in FE network meetings have smaller campuses and fewer students, so it’s a bit easier to implement things and communicate to all staff. If you’re getting buy-in at a senior level from different department heads then you’ll start to get traction.

‘The enthusiasm of the students has been brilliant. They’re coming up with ideas and driving it forward themselves.’

Rob Chambers is the national lead for geography and the trust sustainability lead at Astrea Academy Trust, which comprises 26 schools. We spoke to him about working across a multi-academy trust to embed sustainability.

What is your role?

I am part of Astrea Academy Trust’s Central Education team, and my role is national geography lead, leading on geography education across the trust’s secondary academies. In addition, I have a voluntary role as the trust’s sustainability lead, leading on and coordinating our sustainability work across all of our primaries and secondaries alongside our chief operating officer (COO) Jonathan Timmis, working with eco-leads and senior leadership eco-links in our academies.

How many schools are in your academy trust?

We have 26 schools in total spread throughout South Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire. 17 are primary schools (all of which are in South Yorkshire), and the rest are secondary (Cambridgeshire, Barnsley, Doncaster and Sheffield).


Why is sustainability important to you and your trust?

Astrea Academy Trust fully recognises the importance of integrating sustainability within all aspects of the work that we do. Our CEO and COO are committed to supporting this, which has been crucial for driving forward our successes so far in embedding sustainability across both our academies and central team. The trust’s inaugural work on sustainability was a sustainable estates strategy launched back in 2022 by Jonathan Timmis (our COO), this was a crucial starting point which set the foundation for the work that we have gone on to do. Not only did it acknowledge the importance of investing in infrastructure to reduce costs and carbon footprint, but also the importance of considering all aspects of activities in our academies through an environmental lens, including the initial push for our Go Green Campaign.

To take this forward we used the Department for Education’s Climate Change policy as a framework on which to base our initial thoughts and actions and to plan ahead. On the basis of this we later created our Climate Action Plan, which sets out our goals and actions for tackling climate change and promoting sustainability.

Personally, I’ve always been passionate about global change and the environment, thanks to my geographical background. This personal interest has driven my dedication to embedding sustainability within education, and it is a privilege to be able to lead on driving forward our vision for sustainability through coordinating our GoGreen strategy.

We believe it’s crucial to teach our students about global change and sustainability. We want them to know how they can be part of the solution and help build a sustainable future. We also want to ensure that they have the opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge required for the growing green jobs sector.

It’s important for our students to understand how their decisions affect both local communities and the wider world and understanding social and environmental justice issues related to climate change and sustainability is essential to help them develop as global citizens who can make informed decisions.

In short, by fostering a culture of sustainability across our trust, we’re preparing our students to be informed, proactive members of society who can make a positive impact on the world whilst actively advocating for and demonstrating the principles and practices that we teach our students to ensure that they are a lived reality.

Have you had any training around sustainability or climate education?

In 2019 I undertook an online training course to become a UN Climate Change Accredited Teacher, which was run by UN CC:e-Learn in conjunction with eduCCate Global.

I have also taught climate change as part of the AQA GCSE and I have taught a climate change module as part of the OCR A Level specification which launched in 2016. I have attended numerous sustainability webinars online, including through Let’s Go Zero as well as other organisations, and attended conferences such as the ASCL Conference for a Sustainable Future.

I also network widely via X (formerly known as Twitter) with other sustainability leads and those involved in climate change and sustainability education. 

What activities have you undertaken? 

The first step in our sustainability plan was to ask each school to nominate an eco-lead. It was crucial that this individual was genuinely interested and motivated to take on the role, as they really need to be the driving force within their school. Additionally, we requested that schools nominate a senior leadership team (SLT) eco-link to ensure there was representation at that level, which is vital for driving initiatives forward.

Each eco-lead was then tasked with setting up an eco-committee, comprising students from as many year groups as possible. This inclusivity ensures a broad representation and engagement across the school community.

As the sustainability lead, I organise meetings of eco-leads once a term and provide termly bulletins. These bulletins showcase and share good practices happening within our schools, fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement.

Our regional operations managers play a key role by regularly touching base with the eco-leads in schools. They help promote the GoGreen strategy, working closely with me and the COO to ensure alignment and support.

When we launched the GoGreen strategy in October 2022, we asked all our academies to focus on energy, alongside any other initiatives they wished to pursue. To support this, we signed up all our schools centrally to the Let’s Go Zero campaign. We also support three trust-wide events annually: Switch Off Fortnight in November, the Sustrans Walk and Wheel in the spring term, and World Environment Day in June.

For World Environment Day in June 2023, which focused on plastic pollution, we encouraged schools to raise awareness through social media. Two of our eco-committees visited a local waste recycling plant and participated in a workshop on plastics recycling with the charity Recoup.

Beyond these trust-wide initiatives, schools undertake their own activities, such as creating school gardens, organising community litter picks, and building bug hotels. These activities focus on various topics, including biodiversity, recycling, and litter. Some of our primary schools’ eco-committees have even collaborated to hold their own mini-COP-26 events, and several South Yorkshire schools have participated in the South Yorkshire Schools Climate Conference.

In July 2023, after running the GoGreen strategy for a year, we evaluated our progress. Based on the successes we observed, we decided to adopt a more strategic approach moving forward. We recognized the importance of integrating our efforts in a holistic manner, further strengthening the links between the central team and our academies regarding sustainability. Consequently, we decided to develop our first Climate Action Plan. Our goal is to evaluate our work at the end of each academic year to inform the development of a strategic plan for sustainability for the following year.

Tell us about the climate action plan.

Our Climate Action Plan (CAP) embodies our trust’s philosophy and approach to sustainability, with objectives set across various timescales and sustainability themes at the trust level. When we began drafting our CAP, there was limited guidance on the format, so we decided to proceed with our vision of what it should be. The key was to create a holistic plan that encompassed the entire trust, linking the efforts of our academies and the central team.

We started with a comprehensive meeting that included me as the trust sustainability lead, Jonathan Timmis as COO, and all major stakeholders from the operations side, such as the chief financial officer, regional operations managers, head of IT, head of estates, and head of catering. As a member of the Central Education team, I was able to represent the curriculum perspective.

During this meeting, we outlined what each area was already doing and had achieved regarding sustainability. We then set clear objectives under the following headings: energy, waste, water, IT, operations, healthy living, school grounds, biodiversity, climate literacy, green careers, and information campaigns. These objectives form the foundation of our CAP.

We structured our CAP by starting with the context and our ambition as a trust. We then established our sustainability leadership structure, which includes leadership at both the trust and academy levels. Our work aligns with the four strategic aims of the Department for Education’s sustainability and climate education strategy and is underpinned by the ten sustainability themes outlined in the Eco-Schools framework. Current objectives and examples of achievements then make up the bulk of the CAP.

In addition to our Trust Climate Action Plan, we have tasked each academy with creating their own mini-CAPs. These plans align with trust priorities but are also tailored to reflect each academy’s unique context and are driven by the students in the eco-committees. Currently, several of our academies now have these plans in place, and over the next year, we will work with those that do not yet have them.

Our goal for the end of the 2024–25 academic year is to ensure that every academy not only has an eco-lead and eco-committee but also has its own mini-Climate Action Plan outlining its objectives. This approach ensures a cohesive and comprehensive strategy for sustainability across our entire trust.

What benefits have you seen?

One of the most rewarding aspects of our sustainability initiatives has been witnessing the enthusiasm of the students in our eco-committees. Their creativity and drive have been instrumental in pushing forward various projects and ideas. It’s been incredibly positive to see students having their voices heard and engaging with each other on climate change and sustainability. This engagement has led to real innovations and a sense of responsibility among students to bring about change within their academies.

We are also working to ensure that students can collaborate with academy operations managers, allowing their voices to be heard and enabling them to see the tangible differences being made. For instance, as part of our energy-saving initiatives, we share academy energy usage figures with students. This transparency supports students in asking questions about energy use and identifying practical ways to make a difference.

We have also seen real potential for strengthening community links. For example, one of our schools is developing a school garden and is collaborating with a local rotary club. They are also receiving support from Skanska, a road construction company as part of their community outreach. As part of this students from one of our eco-committees have participated in a series of climate change workshops. Additionally, some of our primary schools have engaged in community litter picks, and we continue to focus on strengthening these community connections.

From the trust’s perspective, there are multiple benefits, including financial savings, environmental improvements, and fulfilling our ethical and moral responsibility to act on sustainability. It also represents good governance. Our efforts have been recognized with the Chartered Governance Institute’s 2023 award for social governance, where we were shortlisted alongside large companies such as John Lewis and Legal & General. We also recently won the Environmental Trust of the Year award in the MAT Excellence Awards. Some of our schools have also now achieved the Eco Schools Green-Flag award.

What barriers have you faced?

Time and money are the primary barriers we face in implementing our sustainability plan, which is a common challenge for most schools. While we have been able to use operational funding for sustainability investment in initiatives such as photovoltaics, increased building and roof efficiencies in energy retention and installing LED lights, there is little to no funding available specifically for more individual sustainability projects at the academy level. Projects like school gardens and eco-committee activities often rely on fundraising efforts or small grants, which are not only limited but also time-consuming to secure. Funding is often also targeted and not necessarily available to all academies. For example, a small number of our academies, those in Doncaster, have been eligible for funding from the National Education Nature Park (NENP) which they have been able to use to good effect to increase biodiversity in their grounds (for example Woodfields Academy).

Our eco-leads, who are crucial to driving these initiatives, take on these roles voluntarily without additional time or financial support. This inevitably limits what can be achieved. Additionally, time constraints and other pressing priorities, such as Ofsted preparation, can understandably divert focus away from sustainability efforts at times. Balancing these priorities can be challenging and sometimes acts as a barrier to ensuring all schools are fully engaged. For instance, while we have mini-CAPs in place for several academies and many have eco-leads and eco-committees we recognise the need to re-launch our efforts in some academies in 2024–25 to maximise buy-in across the board.

This ebb and flow is natural in schools, given their busy environments and the multitude of priorities that need to be managed. However, our trust leaders are deeply committed to supporting sustainability work. We continue to collaborate and explore ways to overcome these barriers, but in a fast-paced educational setting, this remains an ongoing effort.

How do you communicate with your schools?

I have found that Microsoft Teams is one of the best ways to coordinate and communicate across our large number of schools. It allows eco-leads to contact each other and contribute to discussions and ultimately, I hope it will foster a self-driven network. While I coordinate and moderate, my goal is for eco-leads to seek advice and share good practices amongst each other.

I frequently post about upcoming sustainability events, important links, and key stories. I also provide access to bulletins, meeting agendas, and videos of meetings for those who can’t attend live. Additionally, I have been using SharePoint to create a GoGreen hub, which includes a homepage, and academies showcase page where each academy will eventually have their own sustainability page to share good practice and news of what their eco-committees are working on. I am also developing a sustainability resources page based on the ten topics that sit under the Eco-Schools framework.

How are decisions made about what projects to take part in?

As mentioned, we have three trust-wide projects that we encourage all academies to participate in each year. This central guidance is particularly helpful for schools with limited time, as it provides focus, resources, and links to save time. This year, we have asked schools to concentrate on energy and biodiversity.

Beyond these trust-wide projects, we encourage academies to pursue their own initiatives. We believe the most significant gains come from the innovation and drive of the eco-committees within each school. For example, one school noticed a lot of plastic bottles left after sports day the previous year, so they implemented a water refilling station at the next sports day to reduce disposable bottle use.

We have also encouraged all academies to sign up for the National Education Nature Park, aiming to have all schools enrolled by the end of 2024–25. This approach ensures a balance between central guidance and individual school innovation, maximising the impact of our sustainability efforts.

How do you find out about projects and funding?

I use social media a lot, particularly X (formerly known as Twitter), where I follow various individuals and organisations involved in sustainability. We also have the Astrea Go Green X account, which helps us connect with others doing similar work. Additionally, I’m part of the UK Schools Sustainability Network operations group, which is a great source of funding ideas.

I’m in regular contact with the climate advisers from Let’s Go Zero, who provide numerous ideas and information about competitions open to schools. I make sure to flag these opportunities and consolidate them for our schools. I also network with one of the coordinators for the new Climate Ambassadors scheme.

Furthermore, some of our schools in Doncaster are eligible for the National Education Nature Park grant. Two schools have already been awarded £10,000, and I’m currently working with two more schools to access this funding in the current round.

Do you think your approach would work in other schools?

Absolutely. I believe our approach could be successfully implemented in other schools. However, I would strongly advocate for a holistic sustainability policy, and this requires robust connections and commitment from both the central team and operations and the academies and curriculum teams.

A key element is having a leadership structure in place which can effectively bridge these two areas. I have been very lucky as a sustainability lead as my background as a teacher in our academies has given me a deep understanding of the practical working of our academies and the curriculum but additionally as a member of the central team, I have access to the operations teams and the full support and leadership of the COO. This dual perspective has been invaluable in helping to drive our sustainability initiatives forward by being able to connect the two and working to foster a truly holistic approach to sustainability within the trust.

We still have a lot to do, but our priorities and objectives reflect curriculum as well as operations. For example, in 2024–25 we are looking to embed climate literacy and education into our curriculum and strengthen our work on green careers.

‘It helps the students make a real difference. It’s good for their mental health.’

Kate White is a geography teacher who runs the Eco Club at Sir Jonathan North Girls’ College in Leicester. We spoke to her about her experiences of engaging secondary students in climate change.

What is your role?

I teach geography, and I’m also the lead teacher for student voice, which basically means I run the student council. About seven years ago I started the Eco Club, and we’ve had an Eco-Schools green flag for a couple of years now. 

Tell us about your school.

We’ve got roughly 1,200 students. It’s a non-selective all-girls secondary, aged 11 to 16. We’re the only multifaith girls’ school in Leicestershire.

Why is sustainability important to you?

It’s one of the biggest problems facing us at the moment, so it’s absolutely vital that the students know about it and also that they can be proactive. I think quite a lot of them are stressed about the state of the world, so it gives them an opportunity to actually do something practical. It helps them to develop leadership skills and teamwork skills, which is really positive. 

As a trust we are pushing Eco-Schools across all our schools and really focusing on the power of the students to make a difference.

Have you had any training around sustainability or climate education?

I attended the training by Energy Sparks, the Carbon Literacy one, and then obviously I’ve had all the Eco-Schools ones via the local authority. 

What activities have you undertaken at your school?

Our Eco Club meets once a week and over the last couple of years we have undertaken several projects. 

We’ve got a pond, and we’ve been replanting it and making it more nature-friendly. We’ve done lots of litter picks round school, but also in the local area. And last year we got some funding to plant an orchard. We have nine trees plus raised beds, and we also planted some trees on the field.

We’ve been planting bulbs and pollinator plants, that sort of thing. We’ve been making artwork out of plastic and dresses out of crisp packets. 

And this year, we’re doing a hedgehog project with WWF. We have a hedgehog house and hedgehog training and we’ve made hedgehog pledges. We went to a local community evening at the school next door to raise awareness with the local community. Our students had a stand and they spoke to people about their project.

We have a common curriculum across the trust schools, so we’ve helped to design that and we’ve contributed to it. We do climate change in Year 7 and Year 9 and it’s also in the geography GCSE, so we do cover it quite a lot, which I think is very important. 

How do you decide what projects to take part in?

I basically let the students choose what they want to focus on and then look for projects that work with that. So for example, this year the students wanted to do something about healthy living and food, and then I saw from the Eco-Schools newsletter that there was the mealbarrow competition for growing food in a wheelbarrow. We haven’t done that before, but because it fits with what they wanted to do, I’ve signed us up for that. 

Over the years we’ve done different projects. When we did the Keep Britain Tidy litter pick, they gave us loads of litter pickers. So now whenever they want to go and do a litter pick, we just go off and we’ve got all the kit to do it. And with the orchard, we got funding for that and it also gave us trowels, so we can carry on with the planting projects over time. 

What benefits have you seen?

It’s been really positive. It does really help to empower the students. It builds their confidence and teamwork. It gives them a chance for a bit of leadership.

They start off in Year 7 just wanting to make posters, and as they get older, they start leading the projects and coming up with their plans, doing assemblies and spreading the message. Even though we’re a little voluntary club, it’s probably the main one that everybody knows about at school, and it does give them so many different life skills. 

It helps them make a real difference, and they all talk about it in their college applications and how it helped them grow in confidence. They are definitely worried about the state of the world, so I think it does give them a chance to feel they are doing something, however small. I think it’s good for their mental health in that way. And it’s just nice to get outside as well. 

What barriers have you faced and how have you overcome them?

Time is always tricky. Whenever I’ve got meetings or a parents’ evening we can’t do the club. 

Sometimes it’s budget, but that’s when things like Leicester Eco-Schools are really good because they apply for grants and get funding for projects, and then you can sign up for those. I think if I wasn’t in Leicester, it might be trickier because that team is so good and they send newsletters all the time with different things that are going on. And then because I’ve done certain things, sometimes they get in touch and say, ‘Would you be interested in this project?’ 

For example, last year we did the Saving the Saffron Brook project, which was the money for the orchard and bug hunts and various ponds and things like that. But that fed into them getting back in touch, saying we’re now doing this hedgehog project, would you be interested in doing that? And then they said, the swift charity has got these bird boxes and bat boxes, would you be interested in that? So it all feeds into each other which is really good. 

The academy trust is really supportive too. They want to make it trust-wide. We had our first meeting last month for the Eco-School leads across the trust, and there’s only a couple of schools that don’t already have an Eco Club. The trust wants to get those up and running, and we’re having an eco rally day in June with lots of different activities that the students would complete. They want all the schools in the trust to get a green flag award, so they’re getting on board.

What makes a successful project?

In terms of student engagement, it’s topics that they’re passionate about, things that they enjoy. They like it when it’s practical and out of the classroom. They like it when we have outside experts coming in. It makes them feel valued. And if they see those people regularly, that’s good for them. They can get a nice relationship going. 

Do you think the approach you’ve taken would work in all schools?

Yes, as long as you’ve got a supportive school and as long as you’ve some people who can help you out with projects or some people that can point you in the right direction of projects. The Eco-Schools website has ideas of what you can do. So if you’re a bit stuck on a topic, you can click on there and it’s got lots of ideas. 

When I first started Eco Club, it was a bit ad hoc, we only met up once a half term and we just didn’t get anything done. Now, by coming in every week, we’re always chipping away at projects and it means that you get your regulars that keep coming. I really enjoy running it, and they’re such nice, enthusiastic students as well. They’re wonderful.

‘This is a way of shaping young children to make positive changes for the future.’

Vicky Featherstone is the Eco-Lead at Highfields Primary School in Leicester. We spoke to her about how she encourages and promotes climate education at her school.

What is your role in climate education at your school?

I’m a class teacher in EYFS (early years foundation stage) and I’m also the Eco-Lead. My role is to teach the school and the children about climate change and sustainability and try to start some good practices. I come up with ideas for how we can live a more sustainable lifestyle, for the children, the staff and the parents.

What’s your school like?

We’ve got about 370 pupils, all the way from age 3 to age 11. We have a lot of EAL (English as an additional language) children. Our children speak quite a range of different languages.

It’s an inner-city school in a built-up area. We haven’t got much ground and that’s typical of the whole area. A lot of the children live in flats and don’t go out of the city much. Not many of them would go to the countryside on a day trip.

Why is sustainability important to you and your school?

It’s important to me because when you hear what climate scientists are saying, it’s quite a scary future we’re looking at. Eco-Schools is a way of trying to rectify some of those mistakes that we’re making. It’s shaping young children who can then go on to make positive changes, and encouraging our school community to be more environmentally minded.

Have you had any training around sustainability or climate education?

When I first took over as Eco-Lead I had training from the Sustainable Schools team at Leicester City Council. They do things throughout the year. I’ve just done the Carbon Literacy training, which was eye-opening.

What activities have you undertaken at your school?

Last year, we took part in the Urban Nature Project. Our school is quite urban — we don’t have many green spaces. We had a pot of money from Air Wick and the WWF to make our environment more ecologically friendly.

We planted wildflowers and installed bat boxes, hedgehog boxes, bird houses and bird feeders. We introduced a water table because we haven’t really got room for a pond, and bug houses to get a bit more insect life. The children really enjoyed it. I think they found it quite beneficial and it’s nice to do something a little bit different led by someone coming in from the Sustainable Schools team.

This year we’ve focused on energy. With the Eco Group we’ve labelled all the switches and talked to the staff about the Energy Sparks scheme. The Sustainable Schools team came into assembly to talk about saving energy. It’s really useful when external people come in as the children take it on a bit more and are more engaged.

We also do litter picks. We did the Less Litter for Leicester campaign and we had over 60 children volunteering. They really enjoyed that because it is something a bit different to do on their lunchtime and they can see the positive impact it has. The children found it quite eye-opening how much litter there was. We’ll be doing it again this year.

This year we had someone from Walk to Schools come in and talk about  travel tracker. We’ve had really high engagement with it. We entered the school badge competition and I had so many entries, it seemed like the whole school was interested in it.

We have done other things too, including the Leicester Mealbarrow food-growing competition, and we completed the Plastic Clever Schools scheme to reduce single-use plastics.

How do you decide what projects to take part in?

At the start of the year we conduct an environmental review. Each Eco-Schools topic is given a score and we can see which areas we need to focus on. This year, litter was one of our lowest scoring areas, so that was part of the reason why we chose to do something around that. In general, we also look for things that we don’t have to pay a lot of money for or that are convenient.

But it’s also what’s available to us. Sustainable Schools lent us the litter pickers, so we had the resources provided. And from past experience, we know the children are really keen and really interested in it. It’s quite a clear project — you do the litter pick, you weigh it, and you can see the difference.

In terms of including climate education in the curriculum, there are links included in our long-term curriculum planning. From looking at the children’s books, the teachers do a great job of making this engaging and relevant.

What benefits have you seen for the students and the school?

You get the bonus that you improve the school grounds. For example, as part of the Urban Nature Project last year we got a water butt, which has massively changed how we can use the allotment. It’s a lot easier now to go and water the plants which was quite logistically difficult before. We’ve been able to see insects in the bug hotel, and the plants we planted are slowly establishing themselves.

The feedback from the children is really positive as well. They are very invested in it. We recently attended Leicester City Council’s Eco Celebration event and I was so impressed with how well the Eco Team were able to talk about the work we have been doing and how passionate they are.

What barriers have you faced?

I think for me, time is quite a barrier. As Eco-Lead and also a class teacher, I’m limited on how much time I can ask to be taken out of class to work on eco projects. A lot of the things I do in my own time.

Finance is another — we wouldn’t take on a big project where it would be costly. In previous years we’ve done the Great Big Green Week, where you get £100 to do a project. Even for things like buying seeds, I don’t have a budget, so we needed that money to go and buy seeds and sort the allotment out.

Where do you find out about funding projects and opportunities?

Mostly through Sustainable Schools emails and news bulletins, but also through following Eco-Schools on Facebook.

Do you think your approach to climate education could be successful in all schools?

Yes. I don’t think our children are exceptional in being concerned about climate change. And we have shown that even with limited garden space there is a lot you can do.

I think a lot of teachers are already linking climate and sustainability to their existing curriculum. When they do science and geography, climate change is unavoidable.

‘A successful project requires time, energy and an end product that you can see.’

Richard Smith is the Eco-Schools lead at Inglehurst Junior School in Leicester. We spoke to him about his experiences of climate and sustainability education.

What is your role?

I run a specialist unit in the school for autistic children, I’m a designated safeguarding lead, and I’m also the lead for Eco-Schools here at Inglehurst Junior School. We’re an inner-city school with about 320 children from many different countries.

Why is sustainability important to you and your school?

I think it’s important to do things that are good for the environment. We need to change our habits to make the future better for the children.

Have you had any training around sustainability or climate education?

Yes. We’ve been doing Eco-Schools for quite some time. I did the Carbon Literacy training from the council, and the Less CO2 programme delivered by Ashden.

What activities have you undertaken at your school?

On the energy side, we’ve got solar panels placed on the roof, and we’ve had the LED lighting changed. We are part of the Plastic Clever Schools programme. We’ve been doing the Litter Less campaign, and we took part in the Mealbarrow competition last year. We also have Severn Trent doing some assemblies about water at the moment.

Every year we have a Global Goals week where each class takes one of the UN’s sustainable development goals and runs with that for a week. So for example, one class might do rainforests, another might do marine life, and then we have an exhibition at the end where parents come and look around the stands.

We’ve also been part of the Tiny Forest programme. We have a field at the top of the road and we’ve turned part of it into an outdoor learning area. We’ve planted hundreds of trees and installed an area with seating.

How do you decide what projects to take part in?

The energy one is quite important because it’s saving the school money. At the moment we’re doing the school grounds, so when I feel it’s looking a bit scruffy I try to do something. I had four tonnes of bark delivered yesterday.

We always tend to do the Litter Less campaign because our field always needs a bit of a spring clean by March or April. 

What benefits have you seen for the students and the school?

Obviously there’s a monetary benefit from the solar panels, and we’ve also got a new boiler to make it more efficient. And I think it just puts a bit more pride into the school when the school grounds are looking nicer. We’ve also been part of the Healthy Schools project, so that’s given children a much greater awareness of healthy eating.

How do you decide what projects to take part in?

It’s a mixture of me and the students. We meet on a regular basis and sometimes the children come up with their own ideas. At the start of the year we do an environmental review and see what areas are slipping. So we might say, it’s not looking so good on how we look after our water. Then the premises officer will join us at the meeting and he might come up with different types of taps, or new water butts. So we’ll have a look at the topic and the children will come up with ideas and decide what’s feasible.

The children can be quite right. They’ll come up with a litter picking rota. And we’ll send a newsletter out and the children have said it’s a good idea to put top tips on there on how to save energy. 

What barriers have you faced and how do you overcome them?

The number one barrier is finance. Resources are expensive. Another one is not having the right grounds to have a proper forest school or an area where we can have a little fire. The way to overcome that is to train somebody up, but the cost of training that person would be a barrier.

It also needs people who are enthusiastic, and not just one person. You probably need to have a team of more than one or two or three people if you’re going to have a few projects going at the same time.

How do you find out about funding opportunities and projects? 

We get a newsletter from the local authority which contains project ideas. Quite often the headteacher will tell us about emails they’ve received or projects that different heads have been talking about.

How do you decide which projects to take part in? 

I decide if it’s of interest. For example, the Mealbarrow competition was good because I know the gardening club grows things that we could enter. The Litter Less campaign was quite an easy one because we’ve already got the equipment. 

I look at the jigsaw and see what pieces are going on in the school and then try and put them together so we’ve probably got a good half-a-dozen projects on the go. 

I don’t invest in things that I don’t think will be worth the effort. When it comes to something like battery recycling, we could do it for three months and end up with 15 batteries. It may be the case elsewhere that children turn up with 300 batteries, but in our kind of catchment area, we’ve tried in the past and it’s not been successful.

What makes a successful project?

The energy that people put into them. For example, with the Mealbarrow competition, the children really enjoyed it and we came in second place and won some vouchers. It looked really, really nice and the children got a lot of pride out of doing it.

So the successful ones are the ones that you invest a bit of time and energy in and there’s an end product that you can see. Another example is our garden area. Making it look nicer is a quick fix that’s both visually pleasing and creates a good resource for the children. 

Do you think your approach would be successful in all schools?

I don’t see why not. With Eco-Schools there’s a standard process that you go through and then you can customise it to your school. For example, there’s no point in us saying we’ll go and count the plastic on the beach because we’re nowhere near a beach. And it’s sometimes a little bit much, getting on your high horse and telling the children they should be eating fresh plums and pomegranates every day, when the bottom line is they can only afford a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar. You have to cater to your demographics.

But the basics of litter picking, reducing plastic, having nice environmental school grounds, collecting water from the water butts — these things don’t cost a lot of money and are almost generic. In the main, it’s just common sense. 

‘It’s great for the children to feel the soil on their fingers and eat food that they’ve grown themselves.’

Queensmead Primary Academy is a primary school in a disadvantaged area of Leicester. We spoke to Principal Liz Latham and Premises Officer Simon Ingall about the importance they place on climate education in their school.

What are your roles in climate education at your school?

Liz: I’m the Principal, so ultimately the buck stops with me. I manage the resources and, along with the senior leadership team, make sure the children are listened to and facilitate what they want to do around climate change and sustainability.

Simon: I’m the site manager. My main responsibility is to try to make the school carbon-free as much as possible, which includes things like electricity, gas, LED lighting and solar panels.

I also work with the children on the Eco Group. We nominate a child from foundation right up to Year 6, and they are responsible for making sure that the rest of the children and teachers recycle correctly in classrooms. When the children have had training through the year groups, they become an Eco-Warrior in Year 6. This involves all sorts of activities including recycling, tree planting and litter picking.

What’s your school like?

Liz: In terms of the community that we are very proud to serve, we’re in the top 10% on the national social deprivation indices. We have a high number of children who live in very challenging circumstances, with around 40% on free school meals and many with parents who traditionally don’t tend to engage with school life. We see it as our moral duty to prepare the children as citizens of the future and give them the opportunity to formulate ideas about what society should look like.

Why is sustainability important to you and your school?

Liz: On a personal level, our generation has messed up the world and we’ve got to put it right. For the children, they have an awe and wonder of the natural world and they want to protect and preserve that. It’s our job to harness that and give them the tools they need to be proactive. And we often find that we can get to the parents through the children, because the children know how to make real practical changes that have a positive impact on their home life.

Have you had any training around sustainability or climate education?

Liz: Our local authority is phenomenal. They have a team of people who are really active and really engaged with getting into schools, sharing resources and offering training. Simon has been on lots of training through the local authority, but also through other agencies like Earthwatch Europe.

What activities have you undertaken at your school?

Liz: We got all sorts of things going through Polli:Gen. We had the Tiny Forest, which took no financial commitment as it was all charity-based. We were very proud to have the first Tiny Forest planted in Leicester, enabling our children to be citizen scientists. Our Forest School lead now uses it as a resource, so it’s giving the children that experience to be outside and increase their knowledge.

We also got a polytunnel through the Edible Playgrounds project. Again, there was no cost to the school, which is a significant issue because of our tight budget. We were given a grant by the David Cock Foundation to build a polytunnel and some planters so the children can grow food. It’s great for them to be able to feel the soil on their fingers and pull out a radish that they’ve grown themselves and eat it. It’s really important for children to see that cycle of growing.

How do you decide what projects to take part in?

Liz: Funding is a big one. If we’d have had to pay for the Tiny Forest ourselves, it wouldn’t be there. And the same with the Edible Playgrounds, because I haven’t got the money in the budget for that sort of thing

What benefits have you seen for the school?

Simon: It helps me cut down the cost of running the school. Recycling has reduced our waste bill from £11,000 to £4,500. The solar panels and LED lighting are going to save us money because our carbon footprint has gone down considerably. It means we can invest more money back into schoolbooks and things like that.

Liz: It can also make happier and more contented teachers, because they’re not tied to timetables as much. They can go outside and give space to sustainability, climate and the range of biodiversity projects that we have here.

It also helps build the children’s characters and aspirations. I am utterly convinced that the strong personal development in our school that runs across every year group is why our results are so high. We’re 20% above national levels for SATs, which for this area is utterly phenomenal. It gives the pupils a voice and makes them take pride in the school, and that translates to their own personal life. They’re invested emotionally in making a difference to their local environment, not just at school but in the local community as well.

What barriers have you faced and how do you overcome them?

Liz: The obvious barrier is financial. We apply for grant funding and look out for free opportunities. We always say yes to things because you never know where it’s going to lead.

Another barrier can be staffing. It can be difficult for teaching staff to let go in terms of driving forward academic considerations. The pupils go outside and have their Forest School experience but they also need to learn to read, so it’s finding a balance between academic achievement and character-building activities. But we have strong leadership and we’re all committed to developing the children to become the best they can possibly be.

What would it take to be successful at this in all schools?

Liz: The DfE have got to take more responsibility in pushing sustainability forward. It’s going to take a particular sort of senior leader to embrace that and run with it because timetables are very busy and accountability is high It’s got to be embedded, and it’s got to come through things like the science curriculum and the geography curriculum.

It’s tricky, but it has to be done. Because if we keep on doing the same things to our world, we all know what the consequences are going to be. Things have got to change, and it starts with the pupils because they’re the ones who are going to lead it.

Everybody can do something, whether it’s turning the lights off or making sure your recycling is on point.

Simon: Absolutely. For example, we recycle all our unused fruit and compost it, and use the compost in the edible playground. By the time they get to Year 6, the children are running it themselves and just get on with it. It’s all about giving them responsibility and getting them to make the right choices. They learn leadership skills, decision-making and resilience.

‘We’re giving city children an opportunity to experience the outdoors.’

James Perry is the Eco-Schools lead at Buswells Lodge Primary School in Leicester. We spoke to him about his experiences of climate and sustainability education in an urban area.

I’m the special educational needs and disabilities co-ordinator (SENDCo) and I’m also the lead for Eco-Schools at Buswells Lodge. We’re a primary school in an economically deprived part of Leicester.

How do you approach sustainability and eco work at your school?

I’ve recently started targeting children who I feel would benefit the most, based on their social and emotional needs. I want to give them the opportunity to get out of the classroom and develop their confidence.

I think being a city school is a key thing for us. I was brought up in an area where you could access the countryside within a five-minute walk. When we take a lot of our children on a trip to the countryside, they are amazed by seeing green space and animals. It reminds you that as city children they don’t necessarily get the opportunities that I did, especially with the level of deprivation some of them have. In the past, teachers have taken children to Bradgate Park, which isn’t that far from us, and you realise lots of them have never done that before.

For me, one of the driving forces behind Eco-Schools is to get some of these children outdoors as much as possible. We may not have a farm, but we have a space where we can grow some vegetables, and a school field for the children to learn on.

I think it’s imperative that the children help to retain and make use of these spaces. After all, it’s going to be their world, and their children’s world, and their grandchildren’s world. If they don’t start making changes, there’s a good chance that it might not be the world that we have now, and the natural spaces that we have now might not be here for them.

Have you had any training around sustainability or climate education?

I have accessed the training through the Sustainable Schools team at Leicester City Council. The last training which I took part in was Carbon Literacy, which was particularly insightful. There’s always a variety of training on offer and we get termly updates on this.

What activities have you undertaken at your school?

We tie activities into our Eco-Schools action plan. We have taken part in the Sea Starts Here project about plastic waste and we’re currently involved in a World Wild Fund for Nature project where we’ve planted hedgerows. We were involved in the Litter-Less litter-picking and we acquired a grant from Severn Trent Water to build an outdoor classroom and refurbish our pond area. We’ve also had a large amount of trees from the Woodland Trust, which are now growing beautifully on our school field.

How do you decide what projects to take part in?

Initially, we complete the Eco-Schools Environmental Review on an annual basis. Some elements of the review are instilled as everyday practice now, such as battery and pen recycling and litter-picking. And then it’s been a case of looking at other elements that we could feasibly target each year, and trying to enlist as much external funding or support for the children as we can to complete these targets.

Has this extracurricular work on sustainability influenced how subjects are taught at your school?

Not as much as I would like. There are links — geography and science are easier for teachers to make links to. We have science lessons where the children go out mini-beast hunting and looking in the pond and through the hedges. We also complete fieldwork in geography using our outdoor spaces.

Our biggest challenge is ensuring that teachers feel more confident to use our outside spaces. For example, it’s a nice day, why not read to the children out on the field instead of in the classroom? I’ve organised CPD run by the Sustainable Schools team to support teachers in using the outside more, so hopefully that will give teachers more confidence.

It would be worth the government considering giving schools more of an incentive to have the environment linked to the curriculum, like they do with British values — then you could have it running through the whole curriculum as a golden thread.

What barriers have you faced?

One barrier for us is parental engagement. Getting parents to engage is difficult for us as a school, so getting them to engage with sustainability is equally tricky.

Time is another barrier, and that’s staff release time more than anything else. There are also financial barriers to some extent, but there are always pockets of funding which you can apply for.

Your school has an Ofsted grade of ‘requires improvement’. Has that changed anything in the way you deliver Eco-Schools?

Ofsted have always been extremely complimentary about the fact that we’ve had  Eco-Schools work as a high priority and we’ve held the Green Flag award for three years.

Ofsted always wanted to meet the School Council or Eco-Team and, again, were always very complimentary about what the children had achieved and how we as a school had targeted specific children almost as in intervention. So no, I don’t think that Ofsted has changed our delivery.

Where do you find funding opportunities and projects?

As a city, Leicester is lucky because our Sustainable Schools team are fantastic at updating us on funding and projects, usually through their monthly newsletter. They’ve also been supportive in making applications for funding and access to projects.

Once you make a start on the Eco-Schools process, you end up signing up to lots of  initiatives, and you get regular updates and emails about future projects.

What makes a successful project?

Ease of accessing and maintaining projects is a key one for us. Having somebody who will come in and help you set up that project is always extremely useful. For example, we recently had our Walk to School Champion come in to lead a refresher assembly to re-engage the children and staff.

Another factor is a project that’s not going to take up a huge amount of staff time. It’s fine for me to say I want to do this project for school, but then I’ve also got to think: am I going to be impacting on staff workload when they’re already busy enough?

What does it take to be successful at this in all schools?

You need to have someone who’s willing to really champion it and get stuck in and have a go. Ideally, it’s someone who is eco-conscious themselves and is willing to do the heavy lifting for the rest of the school, to make it easier for the rest of the staff to engage in the projects.

You need to set time aside too. You need time with the children, and that time is usually when you’re supposed to be teaching, so release time from class is essential. You can choose to work with them in your lunch and in after-school clubs, but for me that wasn’t sustainable, and there hasn’t always been enough time to do everything well.

I personally don’t think I’d have been able to run Eco-Schools as well as I have if it wasn’t for the opportunities that have been highlighted to me. People have said: we’ll support you to do this, and there’s this training, and that project, and this pot of funding that we’ll help you apply for. The support of the Sustainable Schools team in Leicester has been vital.

‘In our concrete jungle, we’ve been learning about biodiversity and urban wildlife.’

Naina Platt is the eco-lead at Charnwood Primary School in an urban area of Leicester. We spoke to her about how the council’s Eco-Schools network is helping her teach her children about the importance of sustainability.

What are the climate-related responsibilities of your role?

I oversee making our school eco-friendly by educating the children about sustainability and what that means to us — looking after the environment, how we can use our planet’s resources in a sustainable, manageable way, and what renewable resources we can use.

Can you give us some background on your school?

We are a happy, open, thriving primary school. We have approximately 440 students, who come primarily from an ethnic minority, with about 96% of Islamic faith. Others come from European and Caribbean backgrounds. A lot of our children come into school with English as an additional language, and a lot of our children receive the pupil premium to help them out. We’ve also got quite a few with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

What sort of space do you have?

We are extremely limited with our school environment. Indoors, space is a big issue for us. We have our classrooms, but for any additional space we are really limited.

We are also tight on space outdoors. It is a concrete jungle — lots of tarmac which we’re trying to green over, and maybe just small spaces. Parts of the building are also Grade 2 listed so we are limited to what we can do, and even in the playground we have a World War Two bunker under the tarmac which has restricted us from doing certain things in terms of digging, for example. But we do try.

Why is sustainability important to you and your school?

It’s such a big issue for human beings. And communicating it to the younger generation is really important. The children at our school may not be aware of what sustainability or carbon footprints are. It’s important for us as a school to empower our children and help them grow up to be adults who can look after their own environment and the planet.

Have you had any training around sustainability or climate education?

Through the Leicester Eco-Schools network I took part in carbon literacy training, which was invaluable — just making you aware what a carbon footprint is and what we can do to reduce it, and how to pass that information onto staff and the children.

Leicester City Council and their whole sustainability team do a wonderful job in keeping school eco-leads informed about things like the Great Big Green Week, Switch off Fortnight and the Plastic Clever Schools initiatives.

What activities have you undertaken, and what benefits have you seen?

We have a lovely green-fingered staff member who does a gardening club, which the children absolutely love. We maintain things in planters and grow things. That’s out of school hours. 

During school hours, we have noticed that children with behavioural issues like to dig, so during play time they will be planting or weeding. We’ve noticed a difference in their behaviour — they’re a lot calmer and happier.

The other thing we’ve been involved in is the Urban Wildlife project. Children from primarily across Key Stage 2 learned about biodiversity. A man from the council visited and encouraged the children to think about how to encourage wildlife in the school grounds. And it’s a hard thing to do, especially in our concrete jungle. But they absolutely loved it.

The project lasted a good five to six months and saw the children planting and growing. They were given a pot of money to spend on equipment. They were monitoring the wildlife in the school grounds and they absolutely loved it. They showcased it often in assemblies so the whole school took part in that.

We are also part of the National Educational Nature Park project. We’ve received funding to green our spaces, and we’ve made links with our local community gardens. It’s very urban here, but there are pockets where green spaces are growing and thriving. It’s really important for our children, especially those who don’t have that space at home, to be part of that and their local environment.

What barriers have you faced?

The biggest barrier is time — cramming it into a packed curriculum and making it meaningful, not just doing it as a one-off. It’s keeping it ticking along throughout the school year and making sure that, year after year, the children are growing up with these issues. We trickle sustainability into the curriculum, especially through geography, science and PSHE.

I’d love to see the children do more events and get out and about more, but costs, time and staffing are the biggest barriers for any school.

How do you overcome these barriers?

I think just going to school leaders and saying that I need time out. They are great and take that on board and give me the staffing and the resources, so that’s a great positive.

For an urban school like ours it’s about saying to staff: we’ve put in place these planters and green spaces, but you need to give this time with a group of children in order to maintain that during the school days.

I would say getting the parents and the wider community involved is important. For the Polli:Gen project, we invited the parents of the children involved in the project and we had a great morning out where they took part in discussion and took photographs. I would like to see more of that because it gets the message out to the wider community about what we’re doing.

How do you decide what projects to take part in?

The children are always at the centre of our decision-making. They are at the heart of our action plan. Through the school council and the eco-team they prioritise what we need, what comes first, second and third. The children tell us what’s important to them, and we take it to the leadership team.

How has the local authority supported you?

They have been great. Right from the start they helped me fill out my Eco-School application and got me onto my first Bronze award. The time they spent with me was amazing, and they continue to support me.

At the drop of an email I can speak to the sustainable schools team. They’ve come into school, looking at what we can do to monitor energy use, what software we can use to reduce our energy use, keeping us informed of funding and projects — it’s been really invaluable. We’ve also done projects with the council where we get together with children at local schools to share initiatives.

I’m just a busy school teacher trying to do my job, and I’m thankful for the links we’ve been given and the contacts that have come our way. The sustainability team at the council do a wonderful job.

Do you think your approach would work in other schools?

Yes. Any school, no matter how big or small, can do what we’re doing. We have shown that even with very limited space there are plenty of activities you can do to get the children engaged with their environment and thinking about sustainability.

‘School leaders can see a city-wide network working on sustainability, and they don’t want to be left behind.’

Laura Barke is an Education Officer (Eco-Schools) for Leicester City Council. We talked to her about how she works with schools to help them implement activities around sustainability.

What are the climate-related responsibilities of your role?

My main focus is going into schools across the city and supporting them with their Eco-Schools Green Flag applications. I work with designated members of staff, typically the school’s eco lead, to complete their application.

My team also runs workshops for students and discusses with staff what they want to do and how they want to make a difference. There are about 120 schools in the city, and we work with about 80 of them.

Are there any costs to schools?

Our support relating to the Eco-Schools Green Flag work is free for schools and we offer that support as part of our core offer for schools. However, there is anaccreditation fee for the Green Flag award. . And some of the other projects we run are externally funded, so they don’t have a cost for the schools. There are then additional parts that schools can pay for, like carbon literacy training for their staff.

Why is your work important?

As an ex-teacher, I know the sort of time constraints placed on teachers. A lot of the time staff are really interested in it, but trying to fit it into the timetable is more challenging.

A role like mine is really valuable for schools because they have somebody there to take away some of those pressures. I can support schools in whichever way they want. I can run sessions with the children without into much input from school staff, or equally I can go in and give  the staff a starting point, or talk through some of their ideas.

Senior leaders can see that we’ve got a real network of schools across Leicester and they can see that there’s lots of staff working on this, so they value it more and they don’t want to be one of the schools that is left behind. They can see that 60 schools in the city have got the Green Flag, and they don’t want to be one of the ones who don’t.

What projects and activities have the council undertaken to enhance climate change education?

We’ve been working with classes of children teaching them about carbon literacy. We’ve also done a lot of work recently on outdoor education in nature. We’ve worked with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for a couple of years now, and in the most recent year we have been improving school grounds — planting hedgerows, adding or improving ponds, introducing nesting boxes and creating hedgehog-friendly spaces.

Alongside the physical work on school grounds, we run education sessions afterwards with the students, so they’re involved in things like the hedge-planting. Then we’re doing further follow-up sessions, getting them to understand why we’ve done it and how nature is important.

Tell us about your work with Eco-Schools.

We have an offer open to all schools. They can contact us and we will do whatever it is that they want to support them with their application.

We run training three times a year for school staff where we talk them through the process and provide ideas for what they can be doing to work on the project, and we also run projects throughout the year that specifically fit within some of the topics of Eco-Schools. This year we’re running a litter project, and we’ve also done the Grow Your Own Grub scheme.

What’s that?

Grow Your Own Grub has been going for multiple years now. It’s open to all schools across the city and the idea is to get schools growing their own food. This is run alongside the public health team. So this year we’ve got the ‘mealbarrow’ competition, where schools are tasked with growing at least five different fruits and vegetables in a wheelbarrow. Then they must plan and design a three-course menu using the items they’ve grown. At the end we bring all of the wheelbarrows together from across the city in a celebration event where members of the public can come and see the work.

It’s suitable for any school, because even if they are one of the more urban or concrete type schools they’re going to have enough space to put a wheelbarrow in.

Schools usually have to pay for the Green Flag award. Does the council offer any financial support towards this?

We do look to subsidise the Green Flag application. Normally it’s £200 for a school to pay, which may be off-putting to many schools because it’s quite a significant cost. It’s entirely worth it, but trying to get that through could be challenging for some schools.

As a council, we look for different sponsorship opportunities and use support from

our social value programme. So last year, schools had to pay £50 for their

application rather than the full £200.

How do you choose what projects to undertake?

I think it’s a combination of reasons. A lot of it is to do with the funding that’s available. But we also look to put on projects that fit within the Green Flag work in particular, helping schools with that overall aim.

It’s also slightly based on the skills within our team — we’re more experienced with outdoor learning, so that drives some of the project proposals like the work with WWF. And often the work fits with different priorities in the wider council, from biodiversity to the climate emergency action plan.

What benefits have you seen from these projects for pupils, staff and parents?

When we work with students, 90% of the time they really enjoy it. Having someone new come in is exciting and increases engagement. For staff, it gives them the opportunity to do work they want to do but may struggle based on the different pressures of timetables and teaching time.

We often get really positive feedback from schools after a project to say that students have enjoyed it or the schools have seen really positive outcomes.

What barriers have you faced?

Definitely timetabling is a huge barrier. Often our contacts are really keen to get us in, but getting that designated time signed off by senior leaders can be challenging. Having space in the school can also be challenging. We are very flexible and happy to work in any space, but a lot of the time schools don’t have anywhere at all.

How have you overcome these barriers?

By sharing the value of the projects and making it really clear to the schools what they’re getting out of it and why it’s so important. That can be shared at different levels in the school, so everyone is on board and everyone knows this is something that they need to make accommodations for.

We also remind schools it’s free. And as a team, we make sure that we’re flexible, working with the school to fit around their timetables and the spaces that they have.

How do you ensure activities continue once your projects end?

Ultimately we rely on schools to take it on and maintain it, but it depends on the staff that are there. As a team, we’re pushing for follow-up funding and future-proofing. For example, we try to make sure that schools have multiple members of staff trained so if somebody leaves there are still people there to take over.

But I think one of the biggest things is having buy-in from senior leaders. This has a trickle-down effect, and they can then make sure that there’s multiple members of staff working on it throughout the school. If senior leaders are on board from the beginning, they can see the benefits to the work that we’ve done.

Do you think your approach would work elsewhere?

I think it’s definitely replicable across authorities, if you have buy-in from relevant people to make sure that your team is supported to build those connections with schools. It’s not the sort of thing that can just happen in a year — it’s an ongoing process.

The climate change and sustainability strategy is still optional. Is that a problem?

It depends on the viewpoint of the school. Some schools will use that as an excuse to not be involved. But equally, some staff understand the value of having a written strategy on climate change.

For me it would definitely make our work easier if it was mandatory because we could go to the 40 schools in Leicester that we’ve not got strong connections with. Ultimately our goal is to work with all schools in the city. But I don’t think it would be fair to make it mandatory without offering suitable support to schools.