St Dominic’s awarded Eco-Schools Award
After a year of preparation, St Dominic’s has been awarded The Eco-Schools Status with Distinction by Keep Britain Tidy. For the past year, the college’s Climate and Local Action committee, along with support from the Chaplaincy team, have been working toward an accreditation to demonstrate our work towards making a more sustainable campus.
The comprehensive process saw students conducting an environmental review of the campus, based on 10 categories: biodiversity, energy, global citizenship, healthy living, litter, marine, school grounds, transport, waste and water. Following this, students met with the principal and presented their findings. From this, we developed an action plan for the college focusing on eight areas to develop the college further.
Staff and students have been working collaboratively on:
- Continuing our fundraising with Ecologi to plant trees and set up renewable and recyclable energy programmes internationally.
- Plant more trees on the College site.
- Participate in Cut Your Carbon November to reduce our carbon footprint as a College body.
- Growing our own grub on the staff allotments in St Dominic’s Park.
- Working with the Chaplaincy group to achieve the CAFOD Live Simply Award.
- Celebrating a Sustainability Week in the College.
- Beginning to work toward an energy-efficient community.
- Putting a recycling bin in every classroom at St Dominic’s.
We have set out in our Eco-Schools application specifically how we have worked toward this, but we have summarised our work below.
Eco-Code adopted by St Dominic’s Sixth Form College
Andrew Parkin, Principal, said “We are delighted with achieving this award; it reflects the dedication and commitment of all students involved in this great achievement, as well as the Acting Assistant Principal who supported them. I look forward to future success in this area going forward.”
This application process has been very empowering to our students, allowing them to develop leadership skills and drive forward initiatives that they are passionate about. The positive impact of their work can already be felt by the college and has given us an excellent starting point for our next phase.
In their feedback, Keep Britain Tidy praised our student leadership, and the many pieces of evidence showing subjects are incorporating sustainability into their curriculum.
Paul Logue | Head of Geography/Acting Assistant Principal