COP 26 @Strand

 Wow! What a week it has been for both the Eco Committee and wider school as we turned our attention to climate change and eco issues here at Strand whilst world leaders met to discuss reducing net emissions in Glasgow. On Monday, the Eco Committee were joined by Brentford and Chiswick MP Ruth Cadbury where they shared all of the fantastic changes we have made in school to become more green, such as planting trees, recycling a variety of materials and reducing our carbon footprint by walking or cycling to school! The committee spoke with great confidence and passion and it was a real honour to have Ruth with us; she was keen to learn about our ideas for the future and how she and her party could help us get there. The week ended with the Eco Committee meeting with Anna Williams, our Eco Governor, to tell her about our work and find out how the GB ensure that Eco issues are always on the agenda at Governing Body meetings. The Committee will be writing a report to Governors to share what they have already achieved and the next steps we hope to take. They have lots of plans - watch this space for more green initiatives to involve the whole community.

On Monday the whole school tuned into a virtual performance from the Old Vic of The Lorax, a story by Dr Seuss, which has a great environmental message: to take care of the world around us and its resources. All of the children thoroughly enjoyed the performance and understood the importance of looking after our environment. Thank you to Miss Hill for organising.

Continuing with our eco theme, each class took time to complete their own eco project throughout the week, ranging from researching COP26 and creating mind maps, to designing fantastic posters. It has been a pleasure to see everyone so aware of and passionate about the small changes we can all make that can have a massive difference.

Our final event was on Thursday where the whole school took part in an online workshop run by Hounslow Council about energy and climate change. The children learnt all sorts of new terms like ‘net zero’ and ‘energy conservation’ as well as taking part in a quiz at the end! Be ready for your children to be telling you to turn off lights, unplug the microwave and install air source heat pumps to cut down on your fossil fuel usage.

Finally, a reminder that we are recycling batteries at the Junior school so please bring any old batteries that you have around the house to the office and we will dispose of them for you.