Oakwood Park has achieved an Eco-school Silver Award. Pupils have worked hard to reduce the school’s carbon footprint.

We did an audit of our LITTER problems in the SCHOOL GROUNDS and of our ENERGY, WATER and PAPER WASTE. Pupils completed these audits on a day set aside for School Environmental Issues

The audit enabled us to find out about aspects of the school grounds, for example wild-life, that we did we not know about and that we can actively protect and cultivate.

The review showed how much waste paper was being put into black bin bags. The school was paying to skip this away to landfills. The school organized a performance by MOMO theatre group. This raised awareness of recycling.

Recycling:

We now have a contract with Pulp Friction who collect our waste paper for recycling. This is a free service. They pay us for our paper! The money raised has been use to buy special paper bins for every area of the school. This paper is gathered together by Pupils and put into Pulp Friction bins. These students have been bought Woodland Trust badges (leading to the planting of 5 trees). They are rewarded with Lunch Passes, merits and a special end of year trip. There is a queue of volunteers!

We have an arrangement with Collect4schools who pay us for recycled mobile phones and ink cartridges. Our Sixth Form Environmental Prefects were instrumental in publicising this.

In a further effort to reduce waste, kitchen-staff now compost their green waste. This compost will be used in the school greenhouse.

Visit the new site at www.eco-schools.org.uk!