VIEW FROM THE CLASSROOM
Embedding sustainability into educational provision
to over 1600 students across our seven sites, our teachers ignite curiosity, encourage critical thinking and creativity. By learning to think for themselves, our pupils achieve exceptional results and gain an excellent skillset which prepares them for life beyond school.
Our mission is to educate and inspire the contributors to tomorrow’s world: intelligent young people with the creativity, compassion, confidence and conviction to question, evaluate and improve society. One part of realising this goal is by championing global social and environmental responsibility among our staff and students.
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n our View from the classroom feature this month we’re delighted to hear from Christopher Woodey, Head of Sustainability at Stephen Perse Schools in Cambridge, who explains why and how the schools in the Stephen Perse family have committed to embedding sustainability into their operations and educational provision by 2030.
Tell us about your school
Stephen Perse is a family of schools in Cambridge, Madingley and Saffron Walden educating boys and girls from early years to Sixth Form. Home
How would you summarise the school’s approach to sustainability? As a school, we have set the ambitious goal to embed sustainability into our operations and educational provision by 2030. Stephen Perse is one of the only schools in the UK to have appointed a full-time Head of Sustainability, and we have developed a Sustainability Strategy, modelled off best-practice UK university strategies, to help us achieve our goal of becoming net zero in scope 1 & 2 emissions by 2030, and scope 3 by 2050.
We are working to reduce our environmental footprint, become more cost-effective and champion environmental and sustainability excellence as a school. By reviewing the operations of our entire footprint, we are intent
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on continuously implementing micro and macro improvements to our operations.
How is the school using the Sustainable Development Goals in its approach? We have mapped the school’s new Sustainability Strategy against the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a collection of 17 global objectives that form the world’s agreed action plan for sustainable development. From ‘Sustainability in the Curriculum’ and ‘Carbon and Energy Management’ to ‘Sustainable Food and Drink’, we have set ourselves targets within each relevant topic set by the UN to create an action plan that addresses all areas of sustainability within our school for maximum impact.
Focussing on decarbonisation, how important is that to the school?
With our school sites spanning different locations, decarbonisation forms a major part of our journey towards net zero. Over the past few years, our heating consumption has steadily decreased year on year, and this has been achieved by making minor adjustments to the heating to reflect when the majority of staff and students are on site. We have enlisted the support of a consultancy to produce a decarbonisation strategy which guides us in how to better heat or cool our facilities with the equipment already available to us. We have increased insulation where space is available and are reviewing the school’s heat
January 2024
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