County's schools to take on sustainability challenge
Herefordshire Council is bringing together professionals who work with schools in order to consider how to improve sustainability in the county’s schools.
Since the 1990s the Council has been helping schools to become more environmentally friendly through the Eco-Schools programme. The programme encourages pupils and teachers to work together on reducing energy consumption and developing environmental projects such as growing fruit and vegetables, and walk-to-school schemes. Herefordshire now has 76% of schools registered on the programme with 62% achieving award level.
Herefordshire Healthy Schools Partnership has worked with schools to develop projects around the growing and eating of fresh produce, encouraging schools to buy locally and encouraging children and young people to become active within their school and community to bring about change.
Now the government is recommending that schools take this work a step further by adopting their proposal for a new framework, consisting of eight ‘doorways’ through which schools can extend or develop sustainability across all aspects of school activity. The doorways cover everything from food, buildings and transport, through to ‘local well-being’ and the ‘global dimension’.
The framework sets out to incorporate sustainable practices into whole-school management, and offers practical guidance on helping schools operate in a more sustainable way. Through demonstrating ‘good practice’, sustainable schools can in turn become focal points for the development of sustainable communities.
Herefordshire Council has grasped the challenge and is calling a meeting to discuss how this framework could be used to build on existing work and make the county’s schools even more sustainable.
Ideas and recommendations from the meeting will be taken forward to a regional consultation event at the Government Office for the West Midlands at a on 21st March, when consideration will be given to forming a Regional Network for Sustainable Schools.
Councillor Don Rule will open the meeting, which will take place from 12.30- 4.30pm at Whitecross School, Hereford on Tuesday 13th March and will include presentations by pupils from Garway Primary School - who have just received a green flag for their eco-work - and from Weobley High School.
“This is about changing people’s behaviours and culture,” said Councillor Rule, cabinet member for children and young people.
“Children and young people in Herefordshire are on the ball when it comes to environmental issues – they see things far more clearly than many adults do, ask more questions about why things such as climate change are happening and they are the ones who will influence their parents’ behaviour.
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“There’s a lot of excellent eco-work taking place in our schools already. The challenge now is to take this a step further and get all the people on board who need to have an active role in changing our environmental culture.”
