The last week of January was Sustainability week and the entire school, with the exception of the exam years, took part.
Below are a few bits of feedback from various parts of the school.
Early Years: The children had a busy but lovely time during our Sustainability week. Thank you to our parents and children who collected their recycling material from home for us to use at school. The children enjoyed making animal masks, marble runs, recycled musical instruments with Ms Gosia and tie-dying T shirts or cloth from vegetable dyes that we made. Highlights were visits from Mr Guenael who informed us about the life of bees. He showed us a bee hive and told us about the types of jobs that bees do. We also had fun with our bee relay, collecting the nectar along the way. Mr Benedykt also taught the children that many things can be turned into instruments and had fun trying it out using chairs, bottles, boxes and a variety of other objects. The children also enjoyed watching a short play performed by the older children of the school and they enjoyed the music they created and performed too. We are enjoying another week of activities, as there were so many things we were not able to finish and complete: Pine cone painting and “shrinky dinks” (made from plastic lids) to name a few.
Secondary: On Monday, all of Secondary were involved in putting on a play for primary. It was entitled the two kingdoms and was to highlight the differences between a sustainable attitude to living versus a more wasteful outlook. Children were divided into groups and had to write scripts, practice parts, make costumes and even write and perform songs. Its was a huge success! Tuesday saw the pupils honing their debating skills around the topics of renewable energy sources. They had time to research their topics and prepare their debates, before having an actual debate. There were some well thought out and interesting points made and consistent effort and hard work displayed. Wednesday there was a guest speaker: Clive Turner who spoke about planning sustainable housing. The presentation was interesting and engaging and the pupils in all year groups enjoyed learning from him. Thank you to Mr Turner for his time, energy and engaging presentations. Thursday and Friday saw the beginning of our school taking part in an International Eco-schools project. Our pupils performed an audit and formed a committee to start work on this project. There is a high level of interest from our pupils for this project and we will continue giving feedback regarding their progress.
Primary: “Have you heard about sustainable art? It is art in harmony with the key principles of sustainability, which include ecology, social justice, non-violence and grassroots democracy. Year 5 pupils used recycled materials: old cardboard boxes, empty packaging and plastic bottles to create their sculptures/ art projects. It promotes thinking more about reducing, reusing and recycling – main themes aiming to protect our natural environment. They were free to create whatever was dear to them, that’s why we had air-planes, rockets, dog and cat houses. (One of the examples of sustainable artists is Andy Goldsworthy. He is a British artist known for his site-specific installations involving natural materials and the passage of time.You can find out more about him here: http://www.artnet.com/artists/andy-goldsworthy/)” Paulina Krok On Friday, the pupils of Year 5 made their art projects according to the above. They had to work in teams and presented the finished projects at the end of the day to Year 2 pupils. On behalf of children, staff and everyone involved we would like to thank the PTA for their support during sustainability week.
More photos can be found in our Gallery