Interview with Tom Hague, Development Lead at Green Schools Project.

Congratulations on being chosen as Future Leap’s non-profit partner for the next 2 years. What does being chosen as Future Leap’s non-profit partner that mean for an organisation like the Green Schools Project?

It means a lot. We are still a small organisation: there’s six of us in total. Half of us are in Bristol and we are trying to expand our work locally. So, for us becoming Future Leap’s non-profit partner is a really positive step towards growing what we do here in Bristol! We know there’s a lot of receptiveness to what we do in Bristol. It’s a green, progressive city, but as is the case elsewhere, the state of climate education is always a bit furtherbehind. We see ourselves as ideally positioned to drive that forward. With Future Leap on board, we hope we can find more partners to support us in doing just that. We want to spread the word about our work and pursue our mission of transforming the way schools respond to climate change, empowering more children and young people.

Can you tell us about your organisation and what it does, so that people in the network can get to know you?

 
Green Schools Project is all about transforming the way schools and pupils respond to climate change. Climate change is the greatest challenge facing society, and children and young people will bear the brunt of that, despite having done nothing to cause it themselves. We need to equip them the best that we can to deal with this reality, and support them to respond positively to it.

I’ll reel off some stats which show why we do what we do: around 90% of young people are concerned by climate change. Over 80% say having more climate education would help them make better life decisions. At the same time, about 90% of teachers want more climate education in schools. There’s even something of a public consensus: 65% of the public are in favour of more climate education in schools. All of that shows there is a really big need for climate education in schools and that’s what we are here to do. Henry, who is our Managing Director and a former teacher, set up Green Schools Project 10 years ago because he was frustrated by the lack of high-quality climate education in schools. 10 years later we have worked with 400 schools, over 10,000 children and young people and we see ourselves at the forefront of responding to that need for high-quality climate education.

How are you delivering this goal?

Our main focus is our flagship programme called Zero Carbon Schools. A package of cross-curricular resources, teacher training and online support, Zero Carbon Schools enables children and young people to gain a better understanding of climate change through designing and leading projects to reduce their school’s carbon footprints. Zero Carbon Schools moves through four stages across the school year. In the first stage – ‘Explore’ – pupils learn about the causes and effects of climate change. In thesecond stage – ‘Investigate’ – they find out what’s going on in their school including where their schools’ carbon emissions come from. As part of this stage, we support them to calculate their school’s carbon footprint for the first time.

A key distinguishing feature of the programme is the next stage – ‘Act’. Here, pupils design and lead projects to reduce their schools’ carbon footprint. What we are looking to do at this stage is to take pupils’ understanding of climate change and turn it into positive action. This is crucial to empower children and young people to respond to climate change. Through Zero Carbon Schools, pupils have designed and lead school energy-saving weeks, walk-to-school days, meat-free cafeteria menus, written to MPs and campaigned for solar on their school roofs!

This all leads to a final stage – ‘Inspire’, where pupils spread the word about what they’ve learned and what they’re doing through awareness-raising events and days which involve the school and the local community. Through these four stages we support children and young people to be catalysts for change, at school, in their communities and in their lives.

We’re proud to have created the most comprehensive climate education programme in the country and to have worked with over 400 schools and 10,000 pupils since we started, but we’re even prouder of our impact. Zero Carbon Schools has helped over 85% of pupils involved develop better communication, teamwork, leadership and problem-solving skills. Where we have repeat data, it has supported schools to save an average of 26.7 tonnes of CO2 per year. Most importantly of all, 94% of teachers and 92% of children and young people would recommend it to their peers.

Talk to us about the sustainability and climate change strategy that the Department of Education have released and where your program and your ambitions sit in relation to it?

Ultimately, we would like to design ourselves out of existence, like many other non- profits. If there was outstanding provision of climate change education in schools, we would not need to be around. We are not there yet. The sustainability climate strategy from the DfE does take positive steps towards that, which we acknowledge. But there’s no statutory provision for climate education in schools. It’s great that there’s now increasing cross-curriculum links for climate education; you might see it in subjects like geography, science, or the new Natural History GCSE. There’s also the National Education Nature Park – joining together outdoor spaces under an educational framework, including with schools. So, there are positive steps being taken. However, until there is compulsory climate education in schools, and it has the same positive impacts as our programme, there’s still work to do.

What kinds of organisations or projects are you looking for to get involved in and how should they contact you?

At the moment we work with a broad range of organisations including Local Authorities, Multi-Academy Trusts, the environmental education sector and businesses. There are several ways these organisations get involved: they might fund us directly to work with or sponsor schools, support us to find and recruit schools, or partner with us to give us additional resources or reach. I would really encourage any organisation who was interested in doing more work with schools, putting their name to sustainability in the education sector and helping us take positive climate action with children and young people, to get in touch. In particular, there is a great opportunity for corporate sponsorship of our Zero Carbon Schools programme. We know that many businesses are really keen to get involved in working with schools, but they might not have the right networks or sector background.

We are very happy to work with corporates to develop their work with schools, where they share our aims around education and sustainability. Likewise, if an organisation saw an opportunity to work with us in another capacity -they might have a green skills programme they want to share, or opportunities for workplace visits – we are happy to hear more. And if there’s other support or expertise an organisation might offer – for example around website development or communications – we are always looking for other partners to get involved! If anyone reading this would like to find out more, I’d really encourage you to get in touch. My email address is:

Tom@greenschoolproject.org.uk

Is there anything you would like to cover that we haven’t had a chance to speak about in this interview?

We are growing in Bristol, and we see how our work is appreciated and needed locally. If there’s a potential partner out there that is interested in what we are doing in Bristol and the South West and thinks they can help us grow, we’d love them to get in touch. We know there are a lot of organisations that share our ethos regionally, and now is a great time to get involved.