Roots & Shoots: Mission Possible » Accrington St Christopher’s Church of England High School

Our Roots & Shoots group (what was and is and is to come!)

Agent W Litherland — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:38:10 +0000

The Roots & Shoots programme is ‘About making positive change happen’ and so is everyone at St Christopher’s Roots & Shoots is also about creating a ‘Supportive environment where young people come together to share ideas and inspiration’ just like St Christopher’s. Roots & Shoots encourages ‘young people like us to implement successful community service projects and participate in special events, so do St Christopher’s. We haven’t achieved global domination but we’ve defiantly caught the attention of most in our county and the nation beyond that. We have tried to make all we do appealing to everyone – from listeners of BBC Radio Lancashire to the fans of football; to primary school pupils and to the old folks of nursing homes.

Naturally to get this range of support, it is safe to say we’ve dragged Mrs Litherland to a variety of places. In rivers, up hills and mountains; to conferences at very posh golf courses; to lesser privileged schools, to radio stations, football clubs, shopping centres …

Most places you can imagine, and a few you probably can’t! (Who thought of Tesco, derelict Churches and an ice cream shop?) With plans to help other schools develop their efficiency further and ideas about Eco French exchange, we are being kept pretty busy. Of course, we make time for special competitions.

The Pledge for Veg project has been the focus of many guests to our school. We would like to qualify as to why this is. Basically, if you Pledge for Veg you are promising to support growing your own veg or buying locally.

We were lucky enough to get Jane Goodall, herself to be one of the first people to sign up. This inspired countless other signatures and got us attention from the local and county councils, who both backed our campaign, after a very nervous presentation to the entire cabinet. We then entered our idea for The Climate Cops N-Power competition, and we were called to the finals. We came second!! Being one of ten finalists schools we were invited to be ten out of a hundred pupils who went on a lovely, little, cold, bonding trip in Ullswater.

Rather Chilly Bonding

We were also introduced to plenty of Eco idols in the form of big celebrities like Konnie Huq and Ben Fogle. We also found inspiration and strength in other young adults our age; people like you! We can only hope we were half as good for them as they were for us.

Post Written by Bethany Pearson Yr. 9

What we hope to achieve next year

Agent W Litherland — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 07:52:35 +0000

This next year (2011-2012) we aim to achieve many things.

We are already talking with ‘Rock FM’ (a local radio station) to create monthly blogs and podcasts on sustainability, when those go online we will post a link on this blog.
We are also currently looking at the possibility of acquiring a poly-tunnel and/or solar photo-voltaic panels.
We have been asked to mentor another school in our area to improve it’s sustainability.
We would like to build an outdoor classroom.
We would love to create a calendar with seasonal recipes following the success of Pledge 4 Veg.
More ideas may come into the pipeline but it’s a work in progress.

Grow Your Own Calendar

Agent W Litherland — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 07:50:10 +0000

In order to raise awareness of how easy it is to grow your own fruit and vegetables St. Christopher’s C.E High School is producing a calendar. The calendar will inform its owner of what time of year to sow, plant out and harvest a variety of around 30 fruits and vegetables which we feel are both easy to grow and tasty. Every month there will also be a seasonal recipe which will incorporate the fruit and vegetables which need harvesting that month. The recipes which we are using in the calendar are going to be chosen from a competition starting in school in September. Pupils will have the chance to bring in a family favourite recipe from home which will then go before a judging panel. The final 20 recipes will then be cooked by the eco team with the help of an A-level food student. The winning 12 will then be photographed and matched with the correct month to create a calendar with seasonal recipes which can be cooked with ingredients from the garden. The calendars will be available for purchase and with every calendar bought there will be a free packet of seeds to get people on their way to growing their own food.

Our aim is for this project to encourage people not only to grow some of their own food but also cook with it in new and interesting ways, while providing fun for the whole family and reduce food miles.

Written By Beth and Sam – Senior Eco-Captains in Yr. 13

Accrington St. Christopher’s Summer Update

Agent W Litherland — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 13:10:33 +0000

Over the past year our Roots & Shoots group has flourished.

Our nationally recognized Pledge 4 Veg campaign was an amazing success. For those of you who haven’t heard of Pledge 4 Veg it was an initiative thought up by some of our year 8 pupils who decided that they wanted to make a huge change in our community, so we started asking people in the local area to sign a promise that they would grow veg over the next year the following film explains all…

The final stage of Pledge 4 Veg was to give everyone who came to our annual Summer Eco Fair a free pot with veg growing in it. Lancashire County Council are rolling this project out across all of Lancashire as a model.

This Year we have also:

earned our Eco Schools ‘Green Flag Award’,
been nominated as TES ‘Outstanding Sustainable School’,
won a local competition called the ‘It’s Our Planet Awards’ in the Green Building Category for our new sixth form centre the ‘Crossland Building’

Some pictures from our annual Summer Eco Fair:

Jane Goodall kicks off our Pledge 4 Veg campaign

Agent W Litherland — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:31:47 +0000

Potty Over Veg?

Pupils at St Christopher’s CE High School are literally going potty over their ‘Pledge 4 Veg’ campaign. They have just received 2,000 pots and seeds to give away to the public as part of their Pledge 4 Veg campaign. They want all local residents to pledge to grow some of their own produce this year. In our town, with lots of terraced housing, they realised despite growing our own food at school, many children thought this couldn’t be continued at home without a large garden. The eco group had other ideas! They launched a campaign called ‘Pledge 4 Veg’ to get the rest of the school and local community growing. To self fund, they wrote letters to local businesses and partnered up with local environmental charity The Prospects Foundation, who gave advice and support along the way. They sourced local compost from SITA and scavenged pots from landscaping of the new sixth form, however, these pots didn’t last long after 300 winter pots were given away on their launch day in December.

Barton Grange Garden Centre came to the rescue after receiving a letter form 12 year old Elliott Goff. Manager Sue Swire said “ ”.

Mrs Litherland, the schools eco schools coordinator, added “We’ve had the backing of the whole community, especially the primary schools and the fans of Accrington Stanley. We’ll be giving these pots out to everyone who attends our Summer Eco Fair on Saturday 11^th June”.

Having recently gained the prestigious Eco Schools Green Flag, only the fourth secondary school in Lancashire to have received this award, they are looking to engage the whole community.

“The starter kits we are giving away, shows our commitment to sustainability goes beyond the school gates” commented Mr Green Deputy Head Teacher. However, their collective belief that small changes are worth making has lead them to tremendous local success with even people without gardens being able to enjoy the benefits of home grown produce.

The year 8 pupils firstly presented their idea to the local council, in November, achieving their unanimous backing, then inviting a county councilor to school in December. On a snowy winters morning they launched ‘Pledge 4 Veg’ to the public at their Christmas fair, after sweeping the school paths and cracking the ice on the compost! They ensured their events were published in the local newspapers, football programmes and radio broadcasts. They attended local primary schools, gave assemblies, addressed teacher cluster meetings and produced a 50 second infomercial ‘Choose Veg’ to promote their campaign online. An evening spent in the local supermarket convinced shoppers to ‘Pledge 4 Veg’. A further evening was spent at a home match of Accrington Stanley, collecting another 500 pledges before the game. The local mayor has signed up as well as eminent primatologist Jane Goodall, the entire squad of Accrington Stanley and Blackburn Rovers Football Club. With the backing of well know local celebrities the children have even reached people who would normally have given them the cold shoulder.

Small changes, really can mount up a large effect. They are busy organising the summer eco fair, where a further 2,000 summer pots will be given away. Local primary schools have been asked to make a dish containing as much of their home grown produce as possible as part of their ‘Eco Factor’ event.

They will be the only children presenting a ‘Food Miles/Pledge 4 Veg’ workshop at the Lancashire Sustainable Conference, held in Chipping in May.

See our infomercial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvqAD-PhNTE&feature=related

See what we’ve been up to locally during Pledge 4 Veg : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMWH55bm_-g

St Christopher’s Fruity Future

Agent W Litherland — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 13:58:46 +0000

Tree Planted and Dedicated

A Community Orchard has been planted in the grounds of St Christopher’s High School.

The school’s Eco-Group were keen to plant the orchard to demonstrate that it is possible to grow your own fruit, even in Accrington, and the project will also highlight that fruit is seasonal. Although the trees are on school land the resulting fruit will be for the community who will benefit from free, locally-grown fruit without the CO2 contributions of transporting imported fruit.

The idea was initiated by the Eco group and helped by The PROSPECTS Foundation which is eager to help communities respond to climate change, and funding was granted by Lancashire County Council’s new Trees and Woodlands Grant Scheme. The County Council also assigned Steve Edwards (their expert fruit tree advisor) to help with the project.

Steve selected varieties of apple, damson, and plum trees suitable for the harsh East Lancashire weather and the first phase of 12 trees were planted on 12 June at the school’s Eco Fair.

“Trees are good for the environment and lock up carbon, so they help to counteract climate change”, said science teacher Wendy Litherland, “but planting fruit trees is a novel take on the idea and makes people think about the vast distances that shop-bought food has travelled. Our orchard might prompt people to buy more local produce and maybe even grow some food of their own”.

The school community enjoyed getting their hands dirty planting the trees which they dedicated to friends and family members.

The orchard will be expanded over the next few years with the addition of more trees and fruit bushes and it is hoped that St Christopher’s Orchard inspires others to do the same.

The first apple tree goes in!

Accrington St Christopher’s Summer Eco Fair

Agent W Litherland — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 03:44:42 +0000

An East Lancashire school St Christopher’s held a major environmental celebration, on Saturday 12th June.

Visitors who biked to the event, were rewarded with a free breakfast, a little more exercise on the cycle smoothie maker ensured the extra pedal power was worth while with a healthy fruit drink!

Children and adults tried to ‘give something back’ to the Earth, by learning more about sustainable living. The fair will brought together 12 local primary school teams to compete for the first “Primary Eco Factor” which was won by St Peter’s Primary School, Accrington. To find which primary school had the ‘eco factor’, teams of four were challenged to under take the green ‘triathlon’ and an eco treasure hunt around the fair. St Peter’s were presented with a willow weaving workshop by Lisa, from Minipods.

The event was run with the help of Lancashire County Council and local people were invited along to get into the swing of being green and to find out more about St Christopher’s bid for ‘Green Flag’ status. Eco schools are part of an international award program that encourages schools to become more eco-friendly and promote sustainability.

Primary school pupils presented their recycled items in the “Green Dragons Den”. This aims was motivate young people to think about reusing items in an imaginative way. The fantastic prize of a multi-use bench, donated by Prosperity Recycling and presented by Roots & Shoots Executive Director, Tara Golshan was won by Grace from St Bartholomew’s CE Primary school, Great Harwood.

Wendy Litherland, sustainability coordinator, said:

“It was a great opportunity for the children to carry messages of sustainability out into the community and to learn that being environmentally aware doesn’t stop at the school gates.”

Mr. Green, Deputy Headteacher, added:

“Parents and their children demonstrated their commitment to helping save the environment for future generations and realised that every little thing they do to help save energy, does count!”

Delegates from Roots & Shoots and A Rocha, both environmental charities working with young people, travelled up from London to attend the event.

Many other exciting events will took place throughout the day including a cycle/acrobatic demonstration by Manchester based all girl cycle dance troop, ‘The Spokes’. Many scaled the climbing wall, tried the skate park or took part in the bike trials.

For the less energetic there was the opportunity to brush up on your gardening skills or grow your own food. Willow weaving workshops ran throughout the day and visitors were invited to plant and dedicate a fruit tree to a loved one in our community orchard. A Compost Guru was on hand to give composting advice and Friends of the Earth and Hyndburn Council gave advice on recycling and other eco matters. All the regular fair stalls were there, such as raffles, games and tombola. Hungry appetites were satisfied with the local BBQ and café which filled them up with tasty produce that was low in food miles.

Providing a back drop to the Eco Fair was the school’s new sixth form building site. The new building will use 40% renewable energy and we hope the fair will inspired the community to learn more about sustainable lifestyles whilst improving their health and wealth! By working together, we aimed to make this year’s summer fair a worthwhile enterprise that benefits the whole community.

To see more pictures of what we have been doing and for more info please visit our website.

“Well haven’t we been busy!!!” :D

Agent W Litherland — Wed, 19 May 2010 17:21:25 +0000

Our Eco group have had a hit squad working on our school’s carbon foot print.

We started our Eco group in September 2008 and have been busy workers from mucky gardeners to being Eco-fairies.

Just a little taste of what we have been doing…

First of all we did a litter pick on our school field…mainly rubbish from people who use it in the evening! We recycled what we could in our new recycling bins.
We have also started a vegetable garden in our Year 7 yard – we have grown, onions, brussel sprouts, radish, tomatoes, potatoes and lot more yummy food! !
We have planted some plants and trees in our huge field.
We have also created several Eco-fairies. We go around all the classrooms in our school checking that the lights, computers and projectors are off, and if so then the teacher gets a chocolate as a reward! If all three are not turned off then they get a note telling them “how disappointed we are in you!” We do this monthly.
We also went on a trip last month to Townley Park Off Shoots Centre which in a centre where they grow all their own vegetables. It was a very educating trip (especially when we got to try some of the food!!!)
We have done a car wash at lunch times and at the summer fairs.
Many walks and ride to school events have taken place
23 compost bins
A compost guru came in
A car wash to raise money
AND we are holding a ECO FAIR on the 12th JUNE 2010!!!!!!!!!

Accrington St Christopher’s Church of England High School joins Roots & Shoots: Mission Possible

Agent W Litherland — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 07:01:47 +0000

Accrington St Christopher’s Church of England High School in Accrington, Lancashire joined Roots & Shoots: Mission Possible today.

You can see where Accrington St Christopher’s Church of England High School is on a map and read about their local environment here.