Change is in the Air at The Regis School
Sue Garlick
/ Categories: General
School Wins National Sustainability Competition Run by Virgin
The Regis School is celebrating after being chosen as one of only five schools nationally to receive the Virgin Atlantic Change is in the Air Award.
The award, which is run by WE Charity, recognises schools who display a commitment to sustainability. The school’s Rights Respecting School Student Ambassadors, who applied on behalf of The Regis School, submitted an application overflowing with ideas on how to improve sustainability across the school. As part of their application, the students pledged to reduce the number of rubbish crates being sent to landfill and to significantly increase recycling rates.
The school now has £2,000 to spend on recycling initiatives and awareness raising.
Their application stated: The Green Team are a group of students from The Regis School who have made it their mission to reduce waste and increase recycling at their own school and beyond. The team are made of students from our School Council, the A Team and our Rights Respecting Ambassadors. They are keen to uphold Article 24, ‘the right to a clean environment’ and have set themselves the challenge of creating a junk band to spread this message loud and proud. They have visited Ford Recycling Plant to find out what can be recycled locally, are making instruments from recyclable materials and are booked in to perform at assemblies in school to encourage their fellow students to double the amount they recycle.
To ensure their message goes further, they are going to play at the local Felpham and Bognor School Councils Day and hope to enter the Bognor Carnival!
So look out for their green t-shirts, their green message and a whole lot of noise as they encourage us to think twice and recycle, reduce or reuse!
Caroline Saunders, Assistant Principal with responsibility for Education with Character at The Regis School, said: “We are thrilled to have won this award. The student ambassadors worked incredibly hard on their application and are very worthy winners. This award, however, is only the beginning for us and kick starts a new sustainability focus at the school.
As part of our commitment to deliver an Education with Character, we constantly seek to impress on students how they have a responsibility to protect the environment they live in. Our students take this responsibility very seriously and have an excellent understanding of the steps they can all take to reduce their impact on the environment.”
Laura Reynolds, Senior Programmes Manager at the We Charity, said:
“In late 2018, WE launched the Change is in the Air Award for the third time, enabling education groups and individuals in the UK to submit an application about a sustainability project they are looking to launch. Thanks to the generous support and funding from Virgin Atlantic, WE were able to offer five schools up to £2000 for their projects. WE received 53 applications in total from across the UK mainly covering prevalent sustainability issues such as air pollution, food waste, recycling, reducing single use plastic use, increasing local wildlife, and creating green spaces at school and within the community. In mid-January four Virgin Atlantic staff members and one WE staff member came together to read through all of the submitted applications and take on the tough job of narrowing them down to just five! The winning five applications were chosen based on local and global community impact, creativity and uniqueness, and longevity.”
“I’m so pleased to say that The Regis School has won one of the Change is in the Air Award grants for 2019! The judges from Virgin Atlantic absolutely loved the application and how much it stood out from the others for creativity and the amount of detail and research that had gone into it. I’m also so glad that all the hard work that the group put into the application paid off and they are able to make this project truly come to life! Huge congratulations again.”