Ashley Primary, Walton, Year 3

What bothers you?

We asked the children in year three what they would like to change about their local community. The children said they didn’t like grownups smoking in public and dropping their cigarette butts, or people  chewing gum and spitting it on the pavement,  plus when  litter is left at our beautiful and main local attractions – the Thames riverside and Walton park.

What will you do about it?

The children decided to make posters to put in local newsagent shops where cigarettes and chewing gum is bought, to remind customers that cigarette buts and chewing gum must go in the bin as they cause a mess in our town and take tens of years to biodegrade.  We also decided to investigate litter along the river by doing a litter pick, we found many plastic bags and few bins! From our findings we are currently writing to the local council to make suggestions to solve the problem. In problem areas such as the high street where we counted 65 pieces of chewing gum in one hoop next to a bin, we would like to use some ‘put your gum here’ posters which could be checked and replaced on a regular basis to keep gum off the street. Plus, we discovered there are many benches in the park and along the river with no bins beside them. We hope to do another investigation at the start of next term to see if our actions have made a change. In the meantime... If you’re by the river and you drop litter, be aware swans will be bitter! Drop gum on the floor, we say no more! And as for cigarette butts... we say no buts!

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Ashley Primary, Walton, Rabbit Class

Cleaning up Walton

During our walk to St Mary’s Church for our Harvest performances, several children from our class complained about the about amount of litter and rubbish along the pathways and grassed areas that we passed to get there.  After taking a vote against other issues they had raised, it was agreed that this was something they wanted to improve.  

The children made a list of things they could do and split into groups as to who would do what.  The children have taken photographs of the litter and dog mess and sent them to the council with letters requesting more rubbish and dog bins along the pathways.  Other children have designed posters to go up reminding pedestrians to use the bins or take litter home.  Rabbit children felt it necessary to clean the area so some have collected the rubbish and taken the abandoned shopping trolleys back to the supermarket.  

Another group of children rang a double glazing factory whose site backs onto the paths to ask them what they think of the area and see if they can make any changes.  They then wrote to the manager sending him a sample of the rubbish.  Rabbit class are waiting eagerly for a response from the Council and the glazing company.

Stepping Stones School, Hindhead

SAME Campaign : Smile at me not my disability

The KS3 students of Stepping Stones School have organised a campaign called SAME that stands for Smile at Me, which aims to raise awareness about how differently-abled people feel, the challenges that they face and how they would like to be treated.  

They are designing a website and arranged a Funday in Grayshott Village to launch it and to start raising money to cover the costs. They are also designing a disability access scheme and are trying to arrange a National Smile at Me Day.

Ashley Primary, Walton, Owl Class

Can we reduce the use of plastic bags in our local area?

The topic being studied this half term is oceans. The children understand that plastic bags cause great harm to our oceans and the animals and creatures that live in them. They have also looked at the waste that has been dropped along the local streets and down by the river. The children feel strongly that this has an impact on the ocean as bags blown into the river then end up in the soupy mess in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. They have been astounded by phrases such as: ‘there is more plastic than plankton!’

The children have created tally charts of the waste they have found. They have gone into the community (The Heart shopping centre) where they have interviewed people and asked about the plastic bags / bags for life they are carrying. They all enjoyed the experience and discovered that many people were using ‘bags for life’. They have e-mailed various ‘bags for life’ companies who are willing to send them samples of their bags and they even managed to swap these with plastic bags that were being carried by some members of the public. Their next step is to meet with the manager of The Heart to discuss what is being done already and what they can do next to achieve / do / sustain the change the wish to make. 

Video and Powerpoint to follow.

Thames Ditton Infant School

We Can ... Can You?

The children of Thames Ditton Infant School decided that there was too much litter in their local town and school, so they decided to make a change and encourage people to reduce waste and recycle more. They produced posters which have been put up around the town and they have also conducted a litter survey in the village. The findings from this survey were that there is a lack of rubbish bins in the community. The children therefore chose to write to the local council and ask them for help to make this change, and put more bins out in the village.

The children are continuing to share their message with the local community, using the video from this project as a tool – sharing it in school assemblies, presenting to school governors, inviting parents to a viewing of the video and sharing it on the school learning platform.

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

The Sholing Technology College

The World’s Smallest Water Museum

The project is about raising awareness about water conservation. The students wanted to show how a small change to behaviour can make a big difference to water usage and decided to design the World’s Smallest Water Museum in a portaloo, with a talking toilet seat and interactive sink, because it would fun and informative.

The design concept was the winning entry in the water design challenge and won £5000 pounds to build the WSWM. The students worked as consultants to a team of designers to realise their design. The WSWM has now been built and delivered to the school.

St Matthew's, High Brooms

Reduce, Recycle, Reuse

After initial sharing of ideas and discussion we agreed to focus on Reduce, Recycle and Reuse for our project.

Although not a new area we were all concerned about the litter and the waste in and around our school and felt that it was an area in which we could make changes successfully.  We also knew that this was a project that we could undertake without needing a lot of funding and one where once the changes had been made they could be continued with and developed further.  We all wanted to see a litter free environment and be in one where we know as much as possible is being done to care for our wider environment.  We hoped to foster good practice for the future in all members of our school. 

Langton Green Primary

Stop litter in the community, recycle instead

Posters put up in local community to reduce litter and recycle instead, letters written to local mayor and newspaper requesting a photograph and article showing the mayor and school children recycling locally, making and selling Christmas gift tags and presents from recycled materials to raise money for more recycling bins in school, writing and performing a song to the school to encourage recycling.

Sawston Village College, Cambs

Freedom if Not Free

This project is a combined project with Gymnasium 16 School

The project is an awareness campaign about the rights and freedoms that we are so fortunate to have in England and how we must open our eyes to different cultures and ways of living. It is about encouraging our community to be active global citizens and look after what we have but also learn from the experiences of others in other parts of the globe. The project is part of a wider focus for our Student International Forum (our school council is split into four ‘Fora’ that concentrate on specific parts of the school: Learning, Environment, Ethos and International) who is working towards embedding a global ethos and curriculum in SVC to fully prepare our students for life in this changing world.

The ‘Freedom is Not Free’ project has three elements to it: school-wide publication through assemblies, posters and arts competition, student-led lessons in MEP lessons and student-led workshops in local primary schools. The partnerships we have created with Gymnasium 16, Russia and G.S.Shwemu, Rwanda are key to our project objectives. We have also been working closely with our partner school in Russia to combine their project ‘To be a voice in the world’ with ours. Here, freedom is represented by being able to communicate to people around the globe through improved technology.

In our film and powerpoint story you will see how this has impacted on the pupils in both our school, the primary schools we visited and the pupils in Russia in terms of their thoughts and views. We have also put forward our plans to sustain the changes we have started to make through curriculum projects, continued contact with our primary schools and involvement of the wider community.  

Ashley Primary, Walton, Year 4

We can always make people happy

Year 4 Kingfisher class decided they would like to entertain people at a hospice. We discussed reasons why people went to hospices and they thought about what they could do to make them happy. The class put together a show independently and in small groups decided their own magic tricks, poems, jokes, songs and music. After the show the class shared their firework poetry work and chatted to the patients. All involved said what a lovely, inspiring day it was and we received lots of cards and letters thanking us for coming in. To sustain our project, the class would like to re-visit the hospice and develop on the work we have already achieved. 

Ashley Primary, Walton, Year 2

Rebuiling Wall-ton

The children in Otter Class have decided to do something about the broken wall outside the bed and bathroom store, which they regularly see on their walk to school. 

The children felt that the wall did not ‘look nice’ and was also a danger as many of them had walked along the wall, fallen and grazed their legs. The children wanted to rebuild the wall but soon realised that they couldn’t do this themselves! As a class they developed an action plan and split themselves into three groups; which included a team to ring the bed and bath stores to find out what they thought about the wall, a team who wrote letters to the local council and building company who built the wall voicing their concerns and also a team who created posters to send to the council to put up near the wall, warning people of the dangers before the wall is hopefully fixed. 

Download Project Document (Word)

Ashley Primary, Walton, Year 6

Ashley Primary x Walton Leigh School

In our local community, we have a special school for people aged between 11-19.  We wanted to link up with the young people at Walton Leigh School so that we could get to know each other better and interact with them.  As a class we absolutely LOVE Art so we decided to offer our artistic talents and make art more accessible to the young people of Walton Leigh.

St Martin's C of E Primary

"Ban The Can"

We decided to tackle the problem of graffiti.  We think some of it is offensive and it affects the appearance of our town.  We want to remove the graffiti and find other things for people who do graffiti to do.  We know we will need permission from the council to do this, so we have written a letter to them.  We have also taken photos of the problem, asked local people what they think and made anti-graffiti posters.

Coldfall Primary School, Haringey

"Save Your Electricity"

We want to persuade our school, families and community to protect the environment by being very good about saving electricity.

Alternative Video (If you can't access YouTube)

Gymnasium 16 School, Krasnoyarsk

I Can Talk To The World

This project is a combined project with Gymnasium 16 School

This new project has already become our new magician, it gives children something to get up for and go to school with joy and hope to make the world (which is really our common home ) hear their voices, through collaboration and friendship, through building bridges but not walls.

South Farnborough Infant School

Think Before You Throw!

The Year 2 children felt that Litter in North Camp needed their help to be tackled and reduced.

They quickly got to work interviewing locals, designing posters, banners and signs and they even made their own bins for public places as well as our adjacent recreation playground in Queens Road where they found an astonishing amount of rubbish! They also wrote to the local councilor in charge of waste and who also manages the playground to see whether they could have an additional bin in their design installed to help the situation. We await his news.