The Links Academy has always been committed to sustainability and good environmental practices. In recent years a number of significant steps have been taken in order to decrease the Academy’s carbon footprint and become a ‘greener’ organisation.
The desire for pupils to have some ownership and agency over the next stages of this work was paramount in our decision to ensure that all our sites were involved in the process for achieving Eco-School status. Pupils across Key Stage 2, 3 and 4 were involved in a range of activities that facilitated Links Academy St Albans achieving the Eco-Schools Award with Merit. Watch this space for progress towards this award for Hatfield and St Albans as both schools aim for the award with distinction in 2025!
The Eco-Schools programme provides a simple, seven-step framework (see below) that answers this question whilst empowering young people to make a difference in their school, local community and beyond. Since 1994, millions of young people around the world have worked through the Eco-Schools Seven Steps before being recognised for their efforts with a prestigious Eco-Schools Green Flag.
Schools connect their activities to three or more of the Ten Eco-Schools Topics (see below). These topics break large, global issues like climate change into more manageable and directed themes that prompt young people to consider environmental changes that they can make in their school and everyday lives.
Step 1 - Eco Committee
An Eco-Committee is a group of young people who, with the support of one or more adult Eco-Coordinators, lead the Eco-Schools programme in your school. The Eco-Committee will meet regularly throughout the academic year, plan and deliver environmental projects.
Step 2 – Environmental Review
Using the free resource an Eco-Committee completes an Environmental Review of their school. The Review can be completed as a group, or in smaller teams, and is a great way to identify environmental initiatives already taking place in your school, areas for improvement, and opportunities for quick eco-wins.
Step 3 – Action Plan
Inspired by their Environmental Review, an Eco-Committee plans and delivers projects and actions for to three of our Eco-Schools topics across the academic year. Actions can be big or small; simple or complex; funded or free – it is up to you and your Eco-Committee.
Step 4 – Curriculum Links
Alongside taking action, it is important to understand why action is needed, so we are asked to link climate change to at least three areas of curriculum learning during the year
Step 5 – Informing and Involving
Step 5 encourages Eco-Committees to get loud about their Eco-Schools’ work whilst involving others in as many ways as they can. Our Eco-Committee might share their work through newsletters, social media, local press, or environmentally-themed pupil-planned assemblies. They should also carefully consider how the projects in their Action Plan can be extended to involve schoolmates, staff, and families to maximise the impacts of their work.
Step 6 – Monitoring and Evaluation
It is important for an Eco-Committee to understand the positive impacts they have created by monitoring and evaluating the projects in their Action Plan. This provides a platform to build on and will help inspire others to get involved in the future.
Step 7 – Eco-Code
The final task for an Eco-Committee is creating an Eco-Code. This takes all our learning and inspiration and channels it into a mission statement that acts as a call to action for all. Our Eco-Code could be a poster, poem, or even a song.
Although each site has its own focuses that may change year on year, we are aiming to make as many improvements to as many areas above as possible. In doing so we aim to:
The Links Academy serves the needs of primary and secondary schools and their students in the St. Albans and Harpenden districts of Hertfordshire.
Travellers Lane
Hatfield, Herts
AL10 8TJ
1 Hixberry Lane
St Albans, Herts
AL4 0TZ
Woollam Crescent
AL3 6EJ
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