Sibford School
Project
To encourage pupils in the school to conserve energy throughout
the winter months.
To raise awareness amongst the pupils and staff of energy
wastage, through implementing the Switch-Off Fortnight Campaign and
through Goodbye Standby.
Our aim was to save energy, and to find out how much we could
save when the whole school was working towards the same goal.
Action
Switch-Off Fortnight was launched to the whole school by our
Environmental representatives Yrs 7-13 in Assembly. Reps in each
tutor group took responsibility for monitoring the lights, doors
and windows in their tutor base to save energy.
Northmoor Trust visited the school with the Energy Bus to
promote energy saving. This was well received by the pupils. They
also attended workshops on energy conservation.
Challenges
Our school is very old and we have a number of electricity
meters in obscure places. It is not possible to centralise the
meters for ease of reading for the students. Sixth form students
worked with the Business Manager to ensure that accurate readings
were taken and interpreted.
Pupil leadership
Environmental reps read the meters for both weeks of Switch-Off
Fortnight and fed the information to the Business Manager to
interpret the savings from week one to week two of the campaign.
The environmental reps researched where energy is wasted in the
school by conducting an energy audit and took photos to show where
energy is wasted.
They then presented these in a full school assembly, reporting
to the pupils and teachers where energy is wasted and how this
could be improved. Sixth Form reps held a competition for all
pupils to submit a design for a postcard sized poster to encourage
people to switch-off lights when not needed. Prizes of wind-up
torches were awarded in full school assembly.
The postcards have now been laminated by the students and put up
above every light switch in the school.
Result
We were all amazed that we had saved a total of 23% of
electricity during week two of the campaign. The pupils
are still very proactive in conserving energy.
Resources
The school used two activities on the Pod website, Switch-off
Fortnight and Goodbye Standby.
Lessons learned
It is definitely worth inspiring the pupils to save
energy, both for the environment and the school cash flow!
Pupils were so involved in the campaign that we found ourselves
walking along dark corridors - not great for health and safety
though!
Next steps
We are planning to work on a water conservation project. Pupils
will carry out an audit on how we can improve our conservation of
water in all areas of the school.