Pre-Prep Headteacher, Caroline Oglethorpe, on raising earth-friendly children by showing that we care and respect the environment as a school.
"You wouldn't think a 15 year old could change the world and she literally has." said Honor, aged 11, when she heard the news that Greta Thunberg had won Time's Person of the Year last week.
Honor is a keen environmentalist in Year 7 and she is looking forward to next term when new eco and wildlife-supporting initiatives will be discussed and planned with our new environment committee.
This environment committee is an evolution of Pre-Prep’s eco committee, and goes from a Pre-Prep to a whole school initiative involving Years 1 to 8. As a school, we are excited about this change, which reflects a growing awareness in amongst pupils to act to support the planet and our local environment.
In a week which has seen horrendous wildfires in Australia, reminding us that climate change poses a fundamental threat to places, species and people’s livelihoods, I wanted to sum up how we are encouraging our children to be earth friendly, and how you can support this at home.
It is our children who will be responsible in the future for developing climate change solutions and therefore teaching them about people’s impact on the earth, about sustainability and about climate change is important. And as demonstrated by Greta Thunberg, and other children such as Tilly, a fifteen year school pupil from Cheshire, children’s enthusiasm and understanding can help change attitudes and behaviour by inspiring others to action.
It is no surprise that pupils gain most from practical and interactive learning, when they have the opportunity to see and explore first-hand. So when the children in the Pre-Prep had the opportunity to plant a tree this term to create the beginnings of a ‘Westbourne Wildlife Woodland’ it was very exciting and a brilliant opportunity to teach them about the carbon cycle and discuss the importance of trees.
We also discussed how trees make homes for wildlife. The children in Year 2 wrote a letter to the trees with their newfound knowledge, thanking them for the air that we breathe and for absorbing CO2, helping our planet to breathe too. You could see how excited the children were to get involved in the tree planting itself.
Speaking at our tree planting event, Sarah Cunliffe, wildlife filmmaker at Sussex-based Big Wave Productions, said: “I am so proud of all the children. We are at a crucial tipping point in the battle against climate change and the time to act is now. To limit the global rise in temperatures to 2 degrees we need emissions to peak before 2030 to avoid irreversible climate change effect. What is happening here - planting trees - is a fantastic example of how we can all make change and reduce our carbon footprint. We all need to do more.”
‘We all need to do more’ - this sentiment really sums up our approach. We want to empower our children, to help them to realise that we can all make a positive impact if we choose. As environmentalist Dr Jane Goodall says, “I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw puzzle… if you look at the whole picture it is overwhelming and terrifying, but if you work on your little part of the jigsaw and know that other people all over the world are working on their little bits, that’s what will give you hope.”
Our environmental committee will consider ideas and come up with many of their own. Supporting local wildlife, beach cleans, allotment gardening that encourages learning about seasonal eating, recycling initiatives as well as activities to support pollinators will feature.
The work of the committee will echo the school's ethos of encouraging green behaviour. Recently, Solar Education visited Years 3 and 4 and they had huge amounts of fun working out their carbon footprints and how much electricity they use at home - the kettle being the worst offender, and the hair dryer not far behind.
We were also visited by author and passionate conservationist Laurent St John who reminded the children during her visit that they can be their parents’ conscience and help remind parents when they go wrong – such as forgetting to take their bags for life to the supermarket or buying a water bottle when only a few minutes away from home.
In the spring the pupils will be planting wild flowers adjacent to the new woodland site as part of a pan-European pollination project that we signed up to last year to create even more opportunities for wildlife to flourish.
I believe that when we practise what we preach, the impact on young minds is stronger and our children learn better how to make a difference to the environment. That's why I’ve collected together a few ideas that you might find helpful to support your child/ren to develop their environmentalism and to remind us all that every little action helps:
- It is always good to remind ourselves how incredible our planet is. If you haven’t watched Seven Worlds One Planet on BBC1 with your children, you can catch it on iPlayer.
- If you want to learn together, there are sites that explain climate change in a factual way for children such as National Geographic Kids
- Create a challenge to catch each other when not making sustainable choices. A child might not think about the impact of leaving the lid off a glue stick, which means that the whole stick, including plastic casing, has to be thrown away for example. You might forget to turn off your engine at the level crossing. Your child might struggle to resist the ice cream with the biggest plastic packaging etc.
- There are so many fun initiatives you can join in with as a family. Here are two that families I know have enjoyed:
- No Mow May: it is as simple as not mowing the lawn (or part of it) in the month of May. By the end, your garden will be teaming with happy pollinators.
- Your family could join up to Hedgehog Street. Aimed at gardens with fences, you can ensure that there is a hedgehog highway and put yourself down as a Hedgehog Champion in your street and encourage others to do the same.
We look forward to seeing the work of the whole school environment committee start up next term!
