Mickle Trafford Village School - Water Conservation

PROJECT

Why did you decide to undertake this project (i.e. Particular issue in school or part of a larger campaign) and what aims did you have starting out?

It formed part of whole school work around eco schools but linked well with our whole school curriculum work this year that is entitled ‘On The Line’. We wanted to extend pupil awareness of global cohesion and so focussed on finding out more about countries that shared similar lines of longitude as us – France, Spain and Ghana. Added to this we are learning about Unicef’s Right and Responsibilities of the Child and decided on 3 main topics – Water Term, Food Term and Play Term.

Our Y5 pupils had the opportunity to visit an educational centre run by United Utilities and this proved to be an excellent starting poinbt for their work on water conservation – looking at how they could improve on our own energy saving habits in school and also extending this to the wider community.

ACTION
How was the project delivered and was it integrated into the curriculum?

It integrated extremely well into our curriculum – science the water cycle, maths - data handling and reading scales, literacy – persuasive writing and letters, art – posters , ICT , geography etc.

CHALLENGES

Did you have to overcome any challenges to make the project succeed?

As we are an old school our water meter is located outside near our school  gates in the staff car park. The cover is difficult to remove and so it has not been possible for the children to monitor our water consumption

PUPIL LEADERSHIP

How did you get the children involved? How did they have ownership?

The class visit motivated the children. Many learning experiences were relevant for the children – e.g. writing to their parents to explain ways of saving water at home etc. Making water hippos and placing them in our school toilets was seen as an easy and worthwhile action – many children report that they have carried this out at home too.

Children also organised themselves into groups to share information with rest of the school – a photo story posted on the website and shown in assembly explained their trip, posters placed around school encourage others to save water and  one group decided to produce a school magazine – one copy for each class and also displayed on the eco notice board.

As the theme for the whole school was the topic of Water the children were naturally interested in the experiences of children throughout the world regarding access to clean water etc. This meant that they were motivated to support Water Aid as part of our charitable work. Y6 pupils organised the collections – giving each class empty water bottles to fill with coins.

RESULT

How have the children benefitted from the project and any other benefits for the school (reduced costs, cleaner school etc)?  Please include any figures and analysis if appropriate.

Changes the children have made have been simple but easy to stick to. It is too early to say what the changes to our school costs are – our bills are held at County level and we need to try and get copies of our consumption to monitor this.

RESOURCES

Did you use any educational resources such as The Pod (If yes, indicate which activities), receive any support from parents, staff and outside agencies?  Did you have to source funding for the project?

Quite by accident our Parish Council asked if the children could take part in a competition organised by them and our local zoo to spread the message on energy conservation to the community by designing posters. The children found this easy and enjoyable and judges were very impressed by the level of understanding the children showed not only about the subject matter but also the layout of posters for maximum effect.

For teachers it was an excellent quick assessment tool and ideal activity to run alongside play rehearsals at Christmas – easy to start, leave and come back to.

LESSONS LEARNED

What advice would you give to schools that want to follow in your footsteps?

One H&S issue we have had to address – our Reception children thought there were real hippos in the toilets when they saw the posters and tried to lift the cistern lids to have a look !

NEXT STEPS

Has this project driven other Eco-Schools ideas and what is the school working on next?

Looking at other ways to reduce waste – we have had paper recycling bins for a long time but have not thought about encouragements to keep this to a minimum. We want to look at ways of weighing waste in classrooms, keeping records over time and giving incentives to classes to reduce this.

Mickle Trafford Village School, School Lane, Chester CH2 4EF

Posted: 18th May 2010

Back to case studies

Send to a colleague Print this page