Canonbury Primary School is a registered Sustainable School and we work closely with our school sustainability officer @ Islington Council. Sustainability has been very important to our school community for some time and we are looking forward to submitting our application for Silver Eco-Schools Award at the end of this term, in recognition of the work we have done so far towards sustainability.
In 2009-2010, Canonbury embarked on Islington council’s Sustainable Schools Support programme. This programme supported 10 local schools each year for 3 years to become more sustainable and the programme subsequently provides support advice and further funding opportunities. Members of our school community have been presented with green hero awards by the Mayor of Islington, in recognition of the commitment our school has made to becoming greener. This was also acknowledged in 2009 when Canonbury was awarded the Islington in Bloom bronze award.
We have a very committed adult Eco-Committee and a pupil green team that meet regularly to ensure that the theme of sustainability remains high on the agenda, and we are always looking at new ways to become more environmentally friendly. In 2010 Harriet Guggenheim was appointed our green governor and our pupil green team has been facilitated by a team of committed teachers who have strongly supported the eco-schools agenda. Our pupil Green team recently conducted a waste survey and won the sustainable schools waste reduction competition. They have also been delegates in mini Copenhagen environmental summit for Islington schools at the town hall. In 2010 the whole school took part in a Thames water project receiving a free audit to measure water use and new push button taps for all the sinks plus the children took part in class workshops on saving water.
We welcome families in our school community to attend family work days to improve the school grounds and develop our planting areas. In 2009 Canonbury received a grant for improving green space and so we are fortunate that, despite being an inner city school, we have a lot of space to grow food. We have also have been fortunate enough to receive Edible Islington Grants to buy planters to do this on a larger scale. This grant has also paid for further ways to develop food growing in the school. Our gardening club have just received a brand new green house and we have composting bins and a wormery to recycle our food waste. In past the children have grown many things, including garlic and potatoes, and we hope to develop a whole school food growing project later this academic year. At Canonbury we also have a wildlife garden with a pond that can be used as an extension of the indoor learning environment. We are equipped for pond dipping and mini-beast hunting, enabling us to integrate nature study into our every day curriculum…without even having to leave the school grounds!
We consciously recycle at Canonbury, and every room has a blue recycling bin to recycle paper. We compost our excess leaves and the kitchens ensure all food waste is composted. Later this month, we will be engaging in Climate Change week across the whole school, where the children will have the chance to spend the week on cross-curricular activities that will look at the nine areas of sustainability. As part of this themed focus week, we have had an energy monitor installed so that we can track how much energy we use as a whole school.
James Wiltshire
James.wiltshire@canonbury.islington.sch.uk
Article from the Islington tribune: March 2011
Published: 24th June, 2011
by PAVAN AMARA
CHILDREN have been learning “the value of food” thanks to a growing scheme that started five years ago.
Canonbury primary school joined forces with Highbury Grove secondary school earlier this year, and nominated 20 children aged between five and 12 for a day of gardening at the Canonbury Road school.
Canonbury year two teacher Paul Huckerby said: “We have been meeting fortnightly since February, after school for a few hours. Today is about organising the garden properly, learning about new plants, and making growing space. We’ve been growing tomatoes, potatoes and mint, to name but a few, and in July we’ll have a dinner with the ingredients.”
Seven-year-old Salman Ayadi, who was busy shovelling heaps of soil, said: “I love digging because you get so messy. I live in flats, and we have a community garden, but there are bricks lying around everywhere. The only way you’d get messy in our community garden is if you fell into the dog poo that’s everywhere. It.s good to be messy here without any dog poo.”
Kate Fenhaus, who runs Canonbury primary school’s gardening club. “The kids get to connect to food production.”