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Sheffield High Gains Eco Green Flag Award!

Sheffield High School now holds the Green Flag award, the highest achievement level under the national Eco-Schools scheme. To achieve this, we had to identify ways in which we could make a positive contribution to various aspects of the environment including recycling, raising awareness of environmental issues, improving energy efficiency in school as well as working with the local community to improve local spaces.

Our Sixth Form students have led teams of younger pupils in developing a greener way of life at the school. Next on the agenda is a project which will take the Eco-man character to local primary schools to spread the environmental message.

Our efforts to become more environmentally-friendly were also recognised when we were crowned “Most Environmentally-Friendly Secondary School”, jointly with Westfield School, at the Sheffield Telegraph Environment Awards.

For more information on this, please see the Sheffield Telegraph website video

You can also read our own news item on this.

Introduction

One of the topics which is high on the agenda for most schools nowadays is that of the environment and sustainability.

Over the previous two years a small environmental group at Sheffield High had successfully achieved the Bronze Flag award in 2008 and the Silver Flag award in 2009 under the Eco Schools Project. Eco Schools is a scheme set up by the government to encourage schools to think more carefully about the environment. To achieve this, we undertook a number of successful projects and activities. In 2008 our group was expanded to include sixth formers who are assisted by Eco Reps from each of the senior school forms.

Our aim is to make our school a more eco-friendly place!

Eco Projects and Activities

Recent developments have included –

• Creating an Eco Code which we ask pupils and staff to follow

• Holding our second Eco Day when we raised over £600 for the Worldwide Fund for Nature.

• Placing Hippos in all of the school toilets to conserve water. These are ingenious devices which reduce the amount of water used per flush.
• Creating the new position of Eco Rep in every form, responsible for ensuring the new paper recycling facilities are used to their fullest extent
• Working with a local retirement village to recycle for those who are less able
• Monitoring all energy consumption so that we can see the progress we are making. You can see our graph (8.5 KB .pdf file) which shows how we are doing
• Litter picking within the community
• Runing a Nature Group at Sheffield High Junior School

• Creating an Eco Group notice board and holding school assemblies to keep the school updated about our progress

As part of our progress towards our Green Flag we had to –

• Complete an action plan of what we need to achieve to reach Green Flag status
• Have our Sixth Form Block renovated to become more environmentally friendly with state of the art innovations to aid re-cycling, reduce energy consumption and respect the environment
• Develop a nature garden within the Junior School with the Junior Nature Group
• Develop our links with other schools, both in the UK and internationally, to share good practice
• Hold a second Eco Day for an environmental charity
• Work with the local community on an environmental project

• Continue to monitor and reduce our energy consumption

Sheffield High School Eco Code

To make SHS a greener environment, we ask that all pupils and staff do their bit by following these simple rules –

• Don’t waste paper
• Rule off after each piece of work
• Switch off classroom lights when not in use
• Always switch off computer screens after use
• Switch off computers at the end of the day
• Don’t litter
• Recycle all paper

• For details of eco-updates and schemes in School, please follow the link to our Eco Blog