The activities undertaken by the school to get children involved and learning about the environment are impressive. The plant boxes donated by the teams working on the Aquatics Centre and Olympic Stadium were just a part of the ongoing initiatives the school is currently involved with.
It was quite rewarding to see the plant boxes showing some signs of growth and the children were excited and eager to tell us about what they had grown. Meeting a selection of the children showed how worthwhile these kinds of projects are.
Each child was able to tell us one thing they had learnt or contributed towards making a better environment both within the school and local community. This ranged from 'Bertie' the recycling bin, where clothes and shoes could be recycled, to light and door monitors in each class to minimise the energy consumption of the school.
The staff at the school are fantastic and dedicated a lot of time to making things work. The belief is that allowing children to interact with the environment is a powerful learning tool for a number of subjects, not just for environmental topics. Talking to the staff, it seems that the enthusiasm has even spread to parents who are encouraged to water plants at the school when dropping off and collecting their children.
It has been a pleasure working with such conscientious children and staff. We know they have applied for a number of environmental awards and will be keeping in touch to check on their progress.
The experiences gained at the schools have also been fed back to staff on the Olympic Park in promotion of World Environment Day. One of the aims of the Games is to inspire people - we can safely say that the environmental initiatives taking place at St Helen’s have inspired us in our projects.
