Placing sustainability at the heart of a new school community

Case study

St Martin’s at Shouldham Primary School has created a thriving school community with a commitment to sustainability and the environment.

Key learning

St Martin’s has established a thriving school community, with pupils developing the skills, knowledge and attitudes that enable them to participate as active citizens in society.

Embedding sustainability into the curriculum is central to the school’s improvement plan.
The sustainability initiative has helped to increase pupil motivation and participation, with pupils involved in a school council and eco council.
Building on the strengths, expertise and successes of partner schools enabled St Martin’s to make rapid progress with its sustainability programme.
The attractive and diverse school grounds are highly valued by the local community.
The school has maintained and improved standards within core subjects.

Background

St Martin’s is a Church of England voluntary aided primary school in King’s Lynn. The school was built on a brownfield site in 2000, following the closure of two schools. St Martin’s brought together staff from the two closed schools plus new team members and its pupils came from 13 different schools. The school has a flat leadership structure, with all staff working together as a whole-school leadership team.

The new headteacher Marika Mears used the environment as a catalyst for creating a common interest and focus for staff, governors and students at the school. She explains: “I decided to start with a blank canvas. Our starting point was to improve our immediate working and learning environment.”

Key challenges

Establishing a shared focus

With staff and pupils coming from numerous schools, the headteacher needed to quickly establish a shared focus and drive for staff, and also engage the wider community in the work of the new school.

Refining the approach

Once St Martin’s had established its sustainability strategy, the next step was to embed and strengthen its approach. The school set out to work with experienced practitioners who could both support and challenge its work on sustainability.

Solution

Developing the school grounds

Children and parents took part in a range of projects to improve the school grounds, including ‘bring a plant parties’ and tree planting. The school was able to extend its tree planting programme with the support of a Tree Council grant as well as donations from local groups and individuals.

Introducing new projects

When the St Martin’s gardening club identified a need for compost bins, the school developed activities for pupils to learn about composting and recycling. Pupils also learnt about new technologies for energy production when the National Energy Foundation’s ‘green bus’ visited the school.

Curriculum cycle

Staff at St Martin’s worked together to establish a two-year cycle of curriculum activities which encourages individuals to take responsibility for sustainability. Class timetables include regular outdoor education and planting sessions.

Investing in new technologies

The school governors invested in energy-efficient technologies for a recent capital building programme. Although these technologies increased the initial expenditure, they will deliver long-term financial and environmental benefits.

Distributed leadership

The headteacher established a distributed model of leadership, with all staff taking on greater leadership responsibility. This approach freed up time for the headteacher to engage external partners in the school’s work.

Working with partners

St Martin’s has worked with a wide range of organisations involved in sustainability, including the Schools Waste Action Club, Eco-Schools, the National Energy, Foundation, RSPB, the National Trust and Healthy Schools.

Next steps

St Martin’s will work with its partner schools to continue exploring the potential of its approach to sustainability. This will involve sharing knowledge and practice, and helping others to develop individual programmes of activities to support sustainability in their schools.

Further information

For further information contact St Martin at Shouldham Primary School.