St Bernadette’s Primary School in Milton Keynes participated in a special Waste Wise Kid’s assembly which saw the whole school learn about the importance of recycling and sustainability and how they can have a positive impact on their environment now, and in the future. A rubbish robot competition for year 6 students was also launched so they could put their sustainability skills to the test!
Gavin Pilcher and Stacey Bee from Encore Environment’s non profit organisation Waste Wise Kids, presented to the children and teachers at the school in October and were very impressed by the interest the pupils had in protecting the environment. St Bernadette’s Primary School was nominated by Morgan Sindall, an investing member of Waste Wise Kids to receive the Waste Wise Kids educational programme and resource box.
Following the assembly, Waste Wise Kid’s reward charts were distributed to each class for the pupils to earn stickers by doing different activities that could help the environment. This could be litter picking with the family outside of school, choosing reusable shopping bags, or taking part in a repurposing craft activity. All they needed to do to earn a sticker for their class is to send a photo of their environmental and sustainability activity to their teacher. The class with the most stickers on the last day of term earns a special reward from the school!
Once the assembly was complete, the year 6 class continued working with the Waste Wise Kids team who launched a special competition to create a rubbish robot out of items that would normally be classed as waste.
In December, Rachel Rowley and Gavin Pilcher from the Waste Wise Kids team and Kieran Welsh from Morgan Sindall returned to the school to judge the rubbish robot’s competition. They were delighted to see how Waste Wise Kids had impacted the school as a whole.
Gavin Pilcher said: “The entire school has embraced Waste Wise Kids to such an extent that the rewards charts are full, and the lesson plans from the WWK presentation have been used across the different year groups. The teachers have also implemented additional opportunities for children to repurpose and recycle items. We are thrilled that the children are so enthusiastic about protecting the environment, and very impressed at the quality of the competition entries from the year 6 classes. It was a very tough decision to choose the winner and runners up! We would like to thank Anita Bond, Head of School at St Bernadettes, for her support and passion for the initiative.”
The two winners of the Year 6 rubbish robot competition were presented with a fantastic solar powered robot and two runners up received a book about sustainability and recycled stationary items.
Kieran Welsh from Morgan Sindall said: “The Waste Wise Kids programme aligns perfectly not only with Morgan Sindall’s values and beliefs but also fits perfectly into our Responsible Business Plan. Our Welwyn business delivers projects across the Northern Home Counties and we were thrilled to be able to support St Bernadette’s Primary School in Buckinghamshire in delivering this educational programme, alongside Encore. Being a judge for the students’ waste robots was a real privilege, and a challenge, as all the entries were fantastic! We look forward to offering this programme to other schools in 2023″.
The winning Rubbish Robots
Well done to everyone, you all did a fantastic job!
A big thank you to Kieran Welsh at Morgan Sindall for nominating the school and being involved in the judging of the competition.
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