Sustainability

The future holds many challenges for young people                                                                                               Climate change, obesity and global poverty are examples. Schools have a special role to play in preparing young people to build a brighter future          Empowering young people to take responsibility for their own future is not only desirable: it is a crucial feature of their education.

The Government would like every school to be a sustainable school.

A National Framework has been established to guide schools towards this aim.

It comprises three interlocking parts:

• A commitment to care
• Sustainable schools have a caring ethos – care for oneself, for each other (across cultures, distances and generations), and for the environment (far and near). Schools are already caring places, but a sustainable school extends this commitment into new areas. It cares about the energy and water it consumes, the waste it produces, the food it serves, the traffic it attracts, and the difficulties faced by people living in its community and in other parts of the world.
• An integrated approach
• A sustainable school takes an integrated approach to its improvement.
• It explores sustainable development through its teaching provision and learning (curriculum); in its values and ways of working (site); and in its engagement of local people and partners (community).
• A selection of ‘doorways’ or sustainability themes
• The doorways are entry points, or places where schools can establish or develop their sustainability practices. Each of the doorways draws its inspiration from a range of national priorities around sustainable development.

What is sustainable development?

• Sustainable development is a way of thinking about how we organise our lives and work – including our education system – so that we don’t destroy our most precious resource, the planet.
• From over-fishing to global warming, our way of life is placing an increasing burden on the planet, which cannot be sustained. Things which were once taken for granted such as a secure supply of energy or a stable climate do not look so permanent now. We need to help people in all parts of the world to find solutions that improve their quality of life without storing up problems for the future, or impacting unfairly on other people’s lives. Sustainable development means much more than recycling bottles or giving money to charity. It is about thinking and working in a profoundly different way.

 Whole School Level

EPS’ doorways’

• Food and Drink
• Travel and traffic
  • Also see
  • School travel plan page
• Buildings and grounds
• Energy and Water
• Purchasing and waste
• Inclusion and participation
• Local wellbeing
• Global dimensions

EPS Sustainability Planning