Saltaire Primary School
We completed Lunchtime Crunchtime as part of Waste Week.
The aims were to raise awareness of reducing waste and ensure this
was a child initiated project from beginning to end.
Action
The children wrote and performed a whole school assembly
including props, songs and lots of waste facts to start the
campaign week.
A chocolate hamper was put together to motivate the children to
clear their plates and reduce the packaging in their lunch
boxes. A waste station was set up in the dining hall and our
Eco Club children patrolled the hall every lunchtime and awarded
certificates, stickers and raffle tickets as entry into the
chocolate hamper prize draw.
The Children made junk models with speech bubbles to advertise
around the school in addition to the usual posters. They
also took the message home and fed back news of waste
reduction at home.
The children achieved a special Headteacher Award for their
efforts
Challenges
Measuring the waste proved difficult as children on packed
lunches normally take their waste home so that parents can see what
they have eaten at lunchtime. However, because this was just
for a limited period and with some good estimating, we managed a
pretty accurate measurement over the week.
Pupil leadership
This was fully child led and executed. Mr Evans, the
Learning Mentor and Eco Club Leader helped to ensure the children
were able to access the things they needed such as a slot for their
assembly, access to stationery and printers etc. The children did a
brilliant job of organising the materials and systems for their
waste station.
Resources
We used the majority of the Pod's Waste Week resources along
with some that children found themselves, such as books from home
etc.
Local community
Parents were encouraged to help their children reduce the waste
in lunchboxes and children went home with stickers and
certificates. The assembly also helped the message to go home with
them.
A local group of organisations 'Sustainable Saltaire', will be
working with us in the future as they have just received funding to
help reduce the local carbon footprint and this activity will be
display at their launch this weekend.
Result
The children have benefited in so many ways as it was all their
own work. We achieved a Silver Medal because we were a bit
premature with our final audit. However, we are quite sure
that it was a gold in essence.
Lessons learned
Don't run the final audit until the message has had time to take
effect and the amount of waste starts to decrease (which it
will). Also, let the children run wild with it. I would
never have thought of all those ideas.
Next steps
Next term we are planting vegetable in the beds, brightening up
the school grounds with flowering plants and creating a habitat
hotel.