Sustainability Symposium

Holme Grange School hosted the 13th Beyond COP21 Symposium with over 100 pupils attending onsite and 4 local schools (Evendons, St Crispin's, Waverley and St. Teresa's) attending via Zoom.

Beyond COP21 Symposium contributes a key ingredient to future success as a result of the historic Paris talks: the education and mobilisation of the youth and school communities. It links the Climate Crisis to the crucial role of, and action on, the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals through a platform which supports whole school engagement, community outreach and corporate responsibility.

'Despite the challenges faced by the pandemic, the school demonstrated great resolve, passion and determination in making this event a great success and showing its commitment towards Sustainability.' (Beyond COP21 representative).

A huge thank you to all the guests who participated and contributed to the success of the event through exhibiting, running workshops and presenting.

These included Matt Larsen-Daw, Education Manager WWF-UK; Tara Golshan, Director of Education at Jane Goodall's Roots & Shoots; Ricardo Carioni, Deputy Ambassador of Nicaragua to the UK, Ireland and Iceland; ChicP, Dr. Jeff Allan; Melanie Harwood at eduCCate Global and Onestep.

Aims

Moving on from the Paris talks on Climate Change, Beyond COP21 works to help mobilise young people to get involved. Holme Grange hosted the event for the UK and invited local schools to get involved.

During the event the children were encouraged to pick projects they can continue back at their school.

Background

Holme Grange set Sustainability targets and set up a pupil council. This has led to many school initiatives like enrolling teachers in Climate Literacy qualifications, hosting the Symposium and designing a scheme of work to add in to our curriculum.

Resources

We use things like the theatre for large group meetings and pay for speakers on various topics. This is a cross school project that involves all staff.

Impact

Each term we have various sustainability targets that we measure and record progress.

Pupil Involvement

We have pupils of all ages involved in the project from aged 5 to aged 16.