Green guide: how to make your school more eco-friendly

Whether you’re a parent, teacher or pupil, here is a practical guide for making your school more green 

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on Olio

Meat-free Mondays

Help the planet and promote healthy food by going meat-free (even if it’s just one day of the week). The Meat Free Mondays schools programme includes ideas for teachers, tips for students, information for parents and advice for caterers on how to go meat free. Here are some key ideas.

Grow your own

Growing and harvesting food is both rewarding and educational. Dedicate a patch of school grounds for growing food and teaching pupils about the importance of where our food comes from. Check out Food For Life’s Get Growing page for more information and resources, e.g. seasonal planting guides.

Food waste diary

Encourage children to keep a weekly food waste diary, recording what food they waste, how much, and why it’s wasted.

Hold a plastic-waste assembly

Encourage pupils to collect and bring in all the single-use plastic their family generates in a week to raise awareness of the issue of plastic pollution in a visually striking and tangible way.

Go on a beach clean school trip

Dive deeper into the plastic pollution problem and empower pupils to do their bit for nature while learning about how their actions impact our oceans. The Marine Conservation Society have more information about beach cleaning days. If you don’t live near the ocean, how about cleaning up a local park or forest?

Share or swap

Add last year’s school uniforms, books or toys to OLIO, or set-up a parent-to-parent uniform swap.

Eco-friendly supplies

Work with school management to identify opportunities for making the switch to eco-friendly bulk supplies, e.g. cleaning products, classroom supplies.

Air pollution campaign

Introduce an air pollution campaign (check out the Healthy Air campaign). Reduce idling outside your school and encourage pupils, parents and teachers to walk, cycle or take local transport.

Rescue and share your school’s canteen food

Encourage your school canteen to sign-up to our Food Waste Heroes programme, so that we can rescue and redistribute any surplus food via the app, so it doesn’t go to waste.

Become an Eco School

Take it to the next level and register your school to become an Eco School or Plastic Free School.