Schools Sustainability Conference 2017

Posted by Nick Riley on 12th Jun, 2017 |

The 10th conference was held at Blackburn Rovers Football Club. This proved to be an ideal venue for market place exhibitors and presentations and workshops alike.

The first schools’ conference was held in 2007 and targeted Year 4 and Year 5 pupils in schools engaging with Eco-Schools programmes of study. It was held at Chipping Village Hall and Brabin’s Endowed School when Glynis Goldsbrough was Headteacher. Four further conferences were held in Chipping, each with input from FACE, Global Renewbles, Lancashire Global Learning Centre, Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Penwortham Environmental Education Centre, RSPB, students from St Christopher’s CE High School (Accrington) and staff from the host school. Each of these organisations were at the time members of the Lancashire Schools Sustainability Forum. From 2013 St Christopher’s CE High School hosted the annual conferences in their 6th Form Centre and three years ago a programme for able and gifted high school students was introduced. Support from Forum members has continued and other environmental groups have inputted into these well-attended events.

The Lancashire Schools Sustainability Forum provides a platform for sharing skills, knowledge and experience in promoting education for sustainable development in schools and other learning communities in Lancashire. It encourages environmental education and learning outside the classroom (LOtC). The Forum has a commitment to promoting learning for sustainability in schools and includes many local environmental education groups with members giving of their time and expertise to assist in delivering two Schools’ Sustainability Conferences each year. Members supporting the 2016 conferences represented The Eco-Team, St Christopher’s CE High School, FACE, Lancashire County Council, Lancashire Wildlife Trust; STEMFirst, Sustrans and Wildaid Education. http://www.school-sustainability.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Schools-Sustainability-Conference-2017-Primary-Schools.pdf

Playscape Engineering Ltd exhibited their Green Wall system and did a live demonstration of how to build one, the children enjoyed the hands on part of the day and will hopefully ‘sell’ the idea to their teachers.

Interaction from school children was key to the day and we are sure they will have all left knowing a lot more about our environment and the ways we might just help save it for the future.

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