Our trust is driving a pupil-led agenda to reduce its carbon footprint and develop students’ leadership for the green economy
In recent years, the global climate crisis has reached new magnitudes. This issue is particularly important for younger generations, but many feel their calls for solutions are not being heard. As educators, we can and must change that. But how?
Motivated by the growing crisis and global peers like Greta Thunberg and Licypriya Kangujam, pupils across the 19 academies within Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust (BDAT) are working together to fight against climate change by driving forward sustainable practices.
These practices aim to make year-on-year improvements towards the trust’s net zero mission by considering the environmental impacts of every decision we make. These include everything from how buildings are run, to the partners and suppliers the trust works with, to pupil-led community activities.
While each academy has a slightly different focus, whether it be forest schools, recycling or hosting a local climate summit, BDAT’s academies are united in making changes which benefit their local communities.
To give pupils a platform to become leaders within the community, BDAT is setting up pupil-led eco school councils in each academy, which feed into a trust-wide sustainability learning community. The eco councils empower pupils to become confident leaders, giving them an outlet to demonstrate how they are driving forward changes in their academies.
They also lead on important sustainability changes within each academy, including rewilding academy grounds by planting trees and wildflowers, sourcing reusable stationary for classes to cut down single-use papers, and applying for a grant to fund a fleet of bikes for pupils to get to and from school, reducing petrol emissions.
Behind each academy sits a trust-wide workforce sustainability professional network. Sustainability leaders from each academy meet termly to share good practice and encourage other local schools to follow suit. This ensures the work and priorities of pupils, initiated in eco council meetings, drives the environmental improvements across the trust, magnifying the impact of sustainability changes across Bradford.
The Deputy Chief Finance Officer, Matthew Hill, at Bradford Diocesan Academies Trust had his article on sustainability go live on Schools Week this morning, if you would like to read the full article please click here