St Mary’s School, Cambridge, has been given a distinction in the widely recognised Eco-Schools Green Flag Award.
The honour was made in recognition of work undertaken by the boarding school for girls’ eco-committee, run and staffed by students and charged with the aim of making sustainable, environmentally friendly decisions to benefit the school community.
An award is only made after Eco-Schools has assessed a school’s level of sustainability across a wide range of areas, including classrooms, kitchen, infrastructure, governance, utilities and community.
“[The committee] work tirelessly to raise awareness of important local, national, and global environmental issues within our school community and beyond,” said Harriet Whiting, St Mary’s’ sustainability coordinator, who oversees the committee’s work.
“They should be incredibly proud of this achievement.”
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To achieve the Eco-Schools Green Flag award, the eco-committee was required to complete a seven-step process in a single academic year.
Following a school-wide environmental review, conducted to identify opportunities for action, it opted to focus its efforts on three topics: marine, waste and school grounds.
In addition, to achieve a distinction, St Mary’s was tasked with completing an additional seven steps for both the bonus educational questions and the bonus environmental impact scheme, including an evaluation of just how effectively sustainability themes are embedded across the school’s curriculum.
“I know the eco-committee will continue to build on this success, implementing new initiatives and championing changes that will help to make St Mary’s a more sustainable place to learn now and in the future,” added Whiting.
Founded in 1994 and operated in the UK by the Keep Britain Tidy campaign, Eco-Schools describes itself as the largest educational programme worldwide.
Fifty-six thousand schools are signed up to the initiative across 70 countries, engaging 1.4 million teachers and 19.4 million students.
