Now that the summer is well and truly over and we have been through the school uniform back-to-school sales season, Koolskools has a little time to breathe and start blogging in earnest again!
What better way to kick off our Autumn blogging campaign than to tell all our friends and supporters about another very rewarding and enjoyable Koolskools day “on the road” on 21 September, this time to Brighton.
We had a fantastic day meeting and speaking to 18 primary and secondary schools from across the city – students accompanied by their teachers – who were gathered at the Brighton & Hove BHee Eco-Schools conference.
This well organised and truly inspirational event took place over a full school day at Patcham High School. It was organised in partnership with the participating schools by “resourcefutures”, a dedicated consultancy offering all round expertise in waste management and resource conservation. Resourcefutures work with schools through local authority contracts.
Participating schools, who all had ECO Schools Committees, revelled in the opportunity tell each other about their work on the ECO front. Patcham High was literally buzzing with new ideas and the sharing of new experiences. The event marked the end of the first year of a three-year programme of Environmental Education, run for Brighton & Hove Council by Resource Futures in partnership with Sussex Wildlife Trust.
The day’s proceedings were expertly guided and encouraged by the teachers and adult supporters, and we were delighted to see that the staff and supporters also participated in the work-shops with their respective groups of students. Koolskools ran two workshops on Fairtrade and Fairtrade cotton during the day, one for the junior schools and one for the secondary schools. For the former, we had the pleasure of welcoming staff and students from Carlton Hill and St Margarets. The two secondary schools participating in the morning session were Dorothy Stringer and Varndean. Surrounding this blog are the winning entries from St Margarets and Carlton Hill to the “Draw some Fairtrade products” competition that we ran during the junior school workshop. Congratulations to Robin, Anna and Chloe, the 3 winners!!
As part of the nine topics that the ECO Schools programme focuses on, individual schools are encouraged to embrace “Global Citizenship”, and they are encouraged to understand Fairtrade and how it works and benefits small producers in developing countries around the world.
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Koolskools educational presentations offer schools a free, fun and interactive way of engaging students in Fairtrade, and we look forward to visiting many new schools in the coming months to spread the Fairtrade word!