The Whaddon School community believes they have the responsibility of environmental stewardship of the school site and feel strongly the responsibility we bear to the school, local area and our planet.
We recognise that despite our small size, we are best placed to raise awareness among our stakeholders about what we are doing and what we plan to do. In our commitment to raising awareness, taking active steps and seeking alternative, sufficient and sustainable energy sources we uphold this commitment. We have proactively planned opportunities across our Geography, Science, PSHE, D.T curriculum and educational visits to a local farm to raise awareness of carbon footprints, growing and using our own and local food products and how steps are being taken to make the food we consume in school more sustainable.
In forest school we uphold and live the values of "building a deep connection with nature, fostering a life-long love of the environment. That nature provides a unique and enriching learning environment."
We are proud of what we have already implemented and seek to build on this good work in our future plans: Tree planting, rain water harvesting, bird feeders, upcycling single use plastic materials used in school and utilising the local area for educational opportunities. Making ethical decisions about purchasing consumables such as recycled pencils and paper, paper towels and energy efficient hand driers and reducing the amount of single use plastic in school are all steps we have taken to ensure we are making a difference, already.
Some larger maintenance projects require support from our ODBE and CDC surveyors and steps have already been taken to address the poor energy sufficiency/insulation in some of the older parts of our school site.
We are proud of our vast and engaging outdoor learning environment- it is a valuable tool in our curriculum offer and, as such, we intend to do our best to maintain it -for future generations of pupils -for at least another 214 years.