College Environmental Committee and Eco-Schools Bronze Certificate
This academic year brought an exciting and important first for life in the College: the establishment of an Environmental Committee. The structure of the committee was decided very early on: it was to be primarily pupil driven, with as little staff involvement as possible; with this in mind, representatives were chosen from the middle school and each of the senior houses. The first meeting was held over lunch on the 21st of October 2010. It was instantly clear that there was great enthusiasm and interest for environmental matters from the student body. There was general agreement that we have a responsibility to consider our impact on the local environment and that we should strive for this to be as positive as possible. It was also decided that we should follow Keep Britain Tidy's Eco-Schools initiative, which sets a number of targets and gives scope for progression via a series of awards.
Having completed several other smaller projects alongside the full environmental review and drafting a whole-school policy, it became possible to apply for our first Eco-Schools award and I am happy to announce that on the 30th of May 2011 we were awarded a Bronze Certificate. This was a superb achievement considering that it came within the first year of the committee's existence. The next step will be to apply for a Silver Certificate and we are already well on our way to fulfilling the conditions required to do so. Next year can only see bigger and better things as the committee goes from strength to strength; there are several trips and large-scale environmental projects already planned. Perhaps most importantly though: the school is steadily becoming more environmentally aware and sustainable.
This year's representatives were: B-J Smith, Olivia Collins, Toby Udofia, Simon Roux, Izzy Brown, Peter Price and Dubem Anyadiegwu.
