Report of CA-WN 17 September Public Meeting

Ellen Worrell, co-founder and a key volunteer with Green Welford, talked about her new role driving sustainability initiatives for the Peterborough Diocese Educational Trust, which manages 36 schools across Northamptonshire, Rutland and Peterborough. A recording of her talk is available on YouTube.

Apologies: David Garlick, Leonie Beale, Roy Hawkesford
Present: Caroline Saunders, Hannah Gray, Harry Mellor, Helen Dyson, Hilary Hunt, Jane Wood, John Hunt, Julie Fagan, Mike Longman, Rachel Tighe, Rupert Knowles

Background

Ellen is a qualified translator, specialising in animal and nature conservation, renewable energy, and travel and tourism, and has always had an interest in environmental issues. She also has daughters aged 9 and 2; having children focused her mind more on leaving them a healthy planet. She is treasurer of Green Welford, a community sustainability group which hosts bi-weekly community cafes, an annual Kidsfest event, toy and clothing swaps, and is hosting a screening of the People’s Emergency Briefing film.  
Ellen did Carbon Literacy training in 2022.

Supporting schools

Ellen first became involved as a parent volunteer at Welford primary school, a small school with 95 pupils and 4 staff. 3 years ago, PDET introduced its schools, including Welford, to the Eco-Schools programme, Let’s Go Zero which offers free support to schools with writing their climate action plans, and Energy Sparks a platform which helps monitor energy usage. The school’s EYFS teacher and sustainability lead sadly passed away very suddenly in October 2024 but they were determined to carry on and win the Eco-Schools Green Flag in her honour, which they did, creating a community memorial garden at the school.

PDET was pushing Eco-Schools but many of its schools, like Welford, are small with limited resources. Ellen approached the CEO of PDET, who took her on as Sustainability Partner. In this role she supports 8 schools with initiatives including:

• Eco-Schools. This aims to weave sustainability and green education into everyday learning, designed to empower young people seeing extreme heat and drought and sometimes suffering serious eco-anxiety. Schools have Eco Councils consisting of a representative mix of students.
• Carbon literacy training for staff, combined with looking at safeguarding through a climate lens. Safeguarding information provided to schools doesn't mention climate change or the environment, but there can be significant impacts. For example, students affected by flooding, or toilet restrictions due to water shortages make children anxious about using the toilet and drinking. Schools closed in summer due to the heat but some children are safer at school than at home, and those on free school meals may miss their main meal of the day.
• Carbon Footprinting. Analysing invoices to calculate electricity usage, looking at how energy is used, staff/student commutes, and measuring food waste. Cutting energy use will also save schools money.
• Writing and revising sustainability policies. This might include ensuring the catering contract has sustainability built in, with a plant-based option every day.
• Facilities planning: which schools are suitable for air source heat pumps and solar panels.

Q&A

Tell me more about how the Eco-Schools programme empowers children.
There are 7 steps to becoming an Eco-school and themes including biodiversity & nature, school buildings & grounds, energy, and water. Children select which topics they want to work on and devise an action plan. They will talk to the site supervisor, the headteacher or the administrator to find out if the toilet paper is recycled, what is growing on the school grounds, etc. They might weigh food waste and work out what is being wasted and why e.g. not enough topping on the pizza = wasted crust, or chips served with no ketchup are not eaten; adding ketchup cut wasted food from 7 to 2 kilos.
Growing food is great – each class has a planter which they fill with potatoes, leeks, tomatoes, peppers. Then the class makes a soup using the veggies and the school has a ‘soup share’ event where families are invited to try the soup.
At Welford the children invited the local MP to see their walking bus – this has resulted in a trip to the Houses of Parliament for Year 6, and a meeting at M&S with a packaging technologist about single use plastic – nine-year-olds can ask some really difficult questions!

How would you suggest introducing the Eco-Schools programme to a school? Does it need a key volunteer to run it or can you get it embedded so it almost runs itself?
It’s free to sign up to the Eco-Schools portal (has to be done from a school email address).
Resources and ideas for activities are free, as well as eco education ideas broken down by curriculum. Approach your headteacher or sustainability lead.
The programme does need someone to drive it, as well as an eco-council or similar, meeting every 2-3 weeks.
At the end of the year £200+VAT is payable on submission of your application, there is a choice of a plaque or flag in recognition of the award. I suggest getting both the first year, as the flag is useful for taking out and about.

I’m a Department for Education Climate Ambassador working with schools in Milton Keynes. What are your thoughts on alignment between Eco-Schools and the DfE programme, which requires schools to have a sustainability lead and climate action plan. I am finding that schools not already in Eco-Schools think they can just do the DfE programme.
At some schools the DfE climate programme is more of a box-ticking exercise and they are asking me to do things that feel inappropriate such as talking to Year 7 children about green jobs.
The DfE programme is intended for staff and running the school from an adult point of view, whereas the strength of Eco-Schools is that it’s about empowering the children. In secondary schools students can run it themselves, at primary level they need more guidance. Eco-Schools has been around a long time and is being refreshed to align more with the DfE programme. There is plenty of overlap between the two, but in terms of language Eco-Schools is aimed more at children.
Green jobs is one of the 4 pillars of the DfE programme and it’s being pushed hard. But who knows what green jobs will look like in 5-7 years when these students are looking for work? I can send some material about climate and safeguarding which is a good way of getting the attention of senior leaders.

Are schools putting in heat pumps as well as solar panels?
The Trust received some funding for air source heat pumps but unfortunately it wasn’t done very well, with pumps being over- or under-sized and in some cases leading to much higher energy bills. There are also planning restrictions in many villages affecting heat pumps and solar panels, and some schools need their roofs renovating before adding solar. The Trust is rolling out solar one school at a time, starting with those that are relatively new, or have had their roofs done already.
I look at the data for schools with solar panels every 2 weeks and create a graphic which goes out to parents showing how much electricity the panels have generated.

Were you tracking summertime temperatures in schools?
I was trying to – keeping schools cool enough to be safe is a real problem, for example Silverstone school was built ten years ago with big south-facing glass windows for natural light and gets very hot. Welford has wall-mounted heating/aircon units so they can use those, but other schools don’t have aircon and can’t afford to install it or run it. Aircon has an impact on greenhouse gas emissions too, so we are looking at more affordable solutions such as sails and awnings to provide shade. The climate crisis is widening the gap between haves and have-nots and this is apparent in education, where children from lower-income families are more likely to live in smaller overcrowded homes without access to aircon or even fans.

What age do you start talking to children about carbon?
At primary school I tend to describe greenhouse gases and CO2 as like a duvet over the planet, and talk about how they feel when they’re poorly and their temperature goes up by 1.5 degrees and that is what’s happening to the planet. Carbon is covered in geography and science from year 2 (age 7).

Parents parking outside schools with their engines idling is a big problem – how can you tackle that?
We have done campaigns on engine idling and walking to school and got some good engagement. Children would much rather walk or cycle to school than drive, so the choice is made by the parents, often because they are on their way to work. We try to encourage park and stride, so they park a bit further away and walk from there, which reduces air pollution around the school. We’ll do assemblies about engine idling so the children can tell their parents that exhaust fumes are 3-4 times higher inside the car than outside.

Date of next meeting

Thursday 15 October, with guest speaker Mark Tucker, Partnership & Value Chain Manager, Yara International. Our resident farming expert, Rupert Knowles, asked Mark to speak after reading an article he wrote for Farming News. A thriving agricultural sector will be vital to future UK health and food security, so we are grateful to Mark for agreeing to shed light on some of the complexities of modern farming.
https://buytickets.at/climateactionwestnorthamptonshire/2358081

Thursday 19 November, guest speaker Aiden Humphries, River Restoration Officer, Nene Rivers Trust , talk about the work of the Nene Rivers Trust and in particular a new riverfly water quality initiative.
https://buytickets.at/climateactionwestnorthamptonshire/2358097