Pupils at five schools held an event to launch their Big Lottery funded ‘Green Kids and Communities’ programme.

Children from Sybourn, Barn Croft, South Grove and Edinburgh Primary Schools in Waltham Forest, London, met at Kelmscott School to explore ways that they can improve their local and wider environment.

After an ice-breaker activity which uncovered the children’s favourite animals, they learned about the big environmental challenges that the world is facing such as biodiversity loss and plastic in the oceans.

Working in groups with pupils from different schools, they then told each other what environmental projects their school is currently doing before returning to their own school groups to come up with ideas to make them greener and create an action plan that they could take away with them.

Paul Acheson, Deputy Headteacher at Sybourn Primary School said:

It was great to see the children working together with pupils from other schools and they came back to school eager and enthusiastic to start work on the projects.

It is part of an initiative coordinated by Green Schools Project which won £8,750 funding through the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards For All programme to work with the schools.

Henry Greenwood, founder of Green Schools Project, said:

I visited each school to give an assembly which explained climate change and the effect that humans are having on the natural environment, before exploring the actions that they can take to tackle this big global issue.

The reaction was really positive, and the children are very keen to get involved with some projects such as food growing, energy saving and tackling air pollution by reducing car use.

Sam Jones, Deputy Headteacher at Kelmscott School said:

It was very special to see so many young people working cross phase on such a worthwhile project. The students involved were highly engaged and are very much looking forward to transforming their environmental action plans into reality.

The schools will each receive up to £1,000 as part of the funding to kick start their projects and each of them will get support from a university student volunteer.

Picture: Green Schools Project