In the second article of the series which focuses on how to address each area of the Eco Schools Award, Helen Burge, deputy COO at The Priory Learning Trust, discusses the issue of litter and why the Wombles were the original eco-warriors!
Sustainability is not just the SBM’s responsibility; as you read this, consider who you could delegate the actions to, or work with.
My parents are trying to declutter their house and recently uncovered the 1974 Remember You’re a Womble album – much to the delight of my brothers and I. Technically, the album should belong to my older brother, as he was the only one alive in 1974, but it created a wave of nostalgia for me and my little brother too – we used to have cats called Tomsk and Cholet! For those who don’t know, the fictional Wombles, including Tomsk and Cholet, lived under Wimbledon Common and used to make good use of the things that they found, things that the everyday folks left behind – how very ahead of the ‘waste hierarchy’, which was introduced in 2011. The original green eco-warriors!
So why this nostalgic flashback? Well, I think the Wombles and litter are just linked in my head due to the warm associations made in my childhood. We need to encourage strong behavioural messages in our pupils to help them learn the importance of ‘bin it’ rather than ‘drop it’. Unfortunately, I’m sure you can all think of a time in the staff room when certain colleagues haven’t disposed of their breaktime snack wrappers or apple cores, and left them on the side for someone else to deal with. There might have been a valid reason, but you will also recall the indignation you felt upon discovering the litter.
You may have read James Kerr’s Legacy, in which he analyses the culture of the All Blacks rugby team, and lists their 15 mantras which includes ‘Sweep the sheds’ which is further explained as, ‘Never be too big to do the small things that need to be done’ – and so they tidy up their changing room, aka ‘shed’, after training and games. This humility, taking responsibility for their own actions, and not having a sense of entitlement, is what we are really talking about when we are trying to prevent people from littering. This mantra could be introduced by teachers to pupils at the end of a lesson or school day, and for staff at the end of a staff meeting, lunchtime and definitely for the end of term. Jeepers, my blood would boil when I would discover mugs of mould in classrooms, just because a member of staff hadn’t ‘swept the shed’ before leaving for their six week break!
This reminds me of the story of four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody:
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody’s job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realised that Everybody wouldn’t do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have.
It really is the whole school community’s responsibility to prevent litter in order to protect the school environment, discourage pests (including rats and seagulls) and create a nice working environment for all – inside or outside. In our secondary schools our lunchtime supervisors and leadership team walk around with litter pickers so they can catch a stray piece of litter throughout the day and they remind students to use the covered bins. We’re a coastal MAT so the seagulls are frequent visitors to site; we try very hard to discourage them, but their body clocks must be tuned into our breaktimes! Our site teams keep on top of emptying the litter and recycling bins to avoid persistent seagull attention.
They also litter pick the approaches to school. One school has a McDonalds opposite it! McDonalds are a business partner of the Keep Britain Tidy charity which was formed following a 1954 Women’s Institute resolution to ‘Keep Britain Tidy’. This led to the creation of Eco Schools in 1994, and loads of other spin off initiatives and campaigns.
So, whether you ‘remember you’re a Womble’ or your channel your inner All Black rugby player in order to achieve this, may your school be litter free – inside and out.
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