Broadhurst Coop Academy Primary

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Broadhurst Coop Academy Primary have been very busy making a difference in their school community around the environment but were keen to do more and be a part of MEEN’s No time to waste project. In an initial meeting the team voted to campaign to stop food waste, to collect old electronics, batteries and toys, to work on their pre-loved school uniforms project, ensure paper was being recycled properly after Covid, and to re-start their composting.

To make sure everyone in the school knew about their aims and activities the eco team decided to run a whole school assembly. This was delivered to the classes on-line, with everyone in the team making a valuable contribution to the proceedings. In the assembly they asked the whole school to help with their collections and, with full support from the head teacher, the collections grew.

The first task though, was to begin measuring the plate waste the pupils were generating at lunch time. This data was recorded every day. However, given that the Summer holidays loomed it was decided to set up the food waste campaign in the new academic year.

Meanwhile, the school uniforms project was already underway with plenty of pre-loved clothes having been collected. Those items that were not as good as new were recycled but there were still a huge number of items that were ready to be re-distributed.

To promote the pre-loved uniforms a stall was set up at the school entrance one afternoon. Members of the eco team worked on the stalls so parents/carers could browse through the clothes. The items were being sold for between 50p and £1 so any monies raised could be fed back into school.

The team were also invited to help MEEN run a stall at the Green Bees Conference run by Manchester City Council where they were to run games. The pupils also engaged in a curriculum design workshop aimed at primary teachers where their contributions and careful thinking on climate change education was particularly helpful.

Back at school the day came to gather and weigh the various items the school had managed to collect. It was estimated that at least 61kg of clothing had either been recycled or was waiting to be reused; 6kgs of old electrical items had been handed in, 5kgs of batteries were to be recycled and 5kgs of unwanted toys had been donated.

The school staff had also re-reinstated paper reuse collection boxes in classrooms post-Covid and re-instigated paper recycling collection points. Meanwhile a paper amnesty had been issued with teachers being asked to explore what paper resources they had in their cupboards. They discovered plenty of unused exercise books that they could use in the new academic year which would save the schools some money.

The eco team achieved a huge amount in a small amount of time and still have plans to campaign on reducing food waste, are going to re-set their compost bins and to will continue with their various collections.