Sustainability

Sustainability at London Fields Primary

Promoting sustainable living and learning about the global climate crisis is a priority at London Fields.

We promote a sustainable ethos through all areas of school life. We are a terracycle centre for recycling crisp packets, biscuit wrappers and beauty packaging, and we compost all food waste. We are also working to reduce the use of single-use plastics. Two years ago we launched our own line of reusable London Fields water bottles and we have run campaigns both in and outside school to highlight this issue.  We have been lucky enough to receive funding for a 'living wall' in our Sheep Lane playground. The build was completed in August 2019 and is designed to reduce air pollution in the school grounds. This year we are very excited to be working closely with The Garden Classroom, a charity who provides urban children and adults with transformative outdoor experiences devised to encourage active lifestyles, promotes self-discover, inspire growth and stimulate respect for nature. With their support, we will continue to develop the depth of our curriculum through a focus on Climate education and Sustainability in-line with the DFE Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy.

We have two key school councils that promote the importance of sustainability throughout the school, these are:

•  Our Eco Team

The Eco Team meet weekly and work on different environmental projects to improve the school and local area. They are responsible for sharing information with their classes. Some of the projects that the 2022/2023 Eco Team took part in were planting trees donated by the Woodland Trust in honour of the King’s coronation, planting wildflower seed to attract pollinators to our Edible Playground, working with Hackney Council to conduct a waste audit of our school and implementing ways to reduce our overall waste, teaming up with Hackney Council and the Chewing Gum Task force to
improve the appearance of the surrounding area.

• Our Sustainability Champs

The sustainability Champs are promoting our Sustainability Mission: To meet our needs without hurting the world. They have received their initial training during a visit to King Henry's Garden, a local urban garden where The Garden Classroom are based. Together they identified five key problems we all need to address. These were: 

Edible Playground

At London Fields, all pupils have the opportunity to be involved in growing food in our purpose-built Edible Playground. Learning to cook is a crucial life skill that enables pupils to feed themselves and others affordably and well, now and later in life. We believe that instilling a love of growing food and gardening in pupils will enable pupils to have knowledge and understanding of where their food comes from and how we can reduce food miles and look after the environment by growing our own or buying locally produced food where possible. Curriculum links are made with Science to support pupils understanding of how plants grow and how compost is made. Gardening allows pupils to develop practical life skills, practise mindfulness whilst getting their hands dirty!