By the Year 10 & 11 Eco Reps and Mrs Henry, Facilities Manager

This week our Year 10 and 11 Eco Reps launched this year’s ‘Green Week’ at NHEHS which focused on caring for the environment.  Throughout the week girls and staff promoted ‘Thinking Green’ with various practical initiatives, including reusing waste food and reducing single use plastics. 

All week, girls, their families and staff were all asked to support ‘Go Green for Clean Air’ by using sustainable travel. We promoted a switch to walking, cycling, manual scooting or travelling on the school bus to support the environment and encourage a healthier lifestyle. If cycling or walking the whole way to school was impractical for some, we also encouraged girls to “Ride and Stride” by walking the final leg of a journey to school or getting of the bus a stop earlier than normal.

All senior school participants were asked to report to reception to record their mode of travel with a prize for the Year group who had the most participants, with a prize of a delicious free breakfast, to be redeemed after half term!

In addition, we also continued to actively promote the reduction of pollution by encouraging people to turn off their car engines if parked outside the school. This follows our successful Anti-Idling campaign which we have been running over the 18 months.

On Tuesday, Sophie and Zahra our Y12 Eco Leads ran a fun mask making workshop re-using old clothes, producing some fantastic masks.

Our staff also got in on the act with their green tips!

Ms Sinclair shared her ideas for creating notebooks from scrap paper, we heard how Mrs Woolner grows vegetables in her garden and all about Dr Snook’s recipe for chutney! Our archivist Mrs Broekmann makes patchwork quilts and uses recycled bottles for the wadding, because it is soft and ‘washes like a dream, ‘ with one single bed quilt using 13 plastic bottles to make. Ms Johnson shared some great ideas including making a jean pocket organiser, making coasters from old magazines, a purse from crisp packets and a bracelet from can ring pulls.  Parents wrote in to us to tell us about their own initiatives, while Monica in Year 5 sent in some suggestions to make the dining room more sustainable. 

In conjunction with our charities and volunteering work, there was also a book collection for the ROK Network (Redistribution of Knowledge Network). This was set up by some local students in the hope of connecting schools and students with educational books that they no longer need, then redistributing them to schools and students who need them. Girls in every form were encouraged to bring in their old school books and do their part to improve their green footprint.

Finally, on Thursday we held a green-themed ‘Wear your own Clothes Day’ to raise money for The Felix Project. This London-based food redistribution waste charity supports 1.5 million adults in London, who are struggling to afford to eat every day and 400,000 children who are at risk of missing their next meal. In exchange for wearing their own clothes, girls were asked to bring in £1 or donate via their website.