Sustainability at St Cath’s

‘But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.’

(Job 12 7-10)

Laudato Si

As a school, St Cath’s is committed to sustainability. We have been inspired by Pope Francis’ call to:

1. Live Simply.
2. Live Sustainably.
3. Live in Solidarity with the poor.

We have applied to become a CAFOD ‘Live Simply’ School.

Wherever possible we reuse, reduce, recycle. Our Sustainability Society work to ensure that these beliefs are carried through every class.

The children in our Sustainability Society are passionate and enthusiastic about conserving our beautiful home – Earth! They usually meet once a week to discuss local, National and International environmental issues, and what we can all do to help. These meetings often result in the society organising or participating in various activities.

These have included ‘Wear it Wild’ Day – a whole school activity where the children were able to learn about wild animals through play and fun activities, and managed to raise money for the WWF at the same time! They have participated various citizen science projects including: growing seeds taken on board the International Space Station by Tim Peake and observing growth patterns ; discovering, literally, the diversity of life in our school grounds in the ‘ What’s Under Your Feet? ‘ challenge; submitting data they had collected in ‘The Big Bee Watch’ , including number and variety of bees observed.

Closer to home,  our members often organise assemblies to share their knowledge and upcoming initiatives with the whole school, allowing collective responsibility. These have included: Switch Off Fortnight’ – being aware and taking responsibility for the energy we consume; introducing recycling boxes around the school to minimise wastage of paper/cardboard etc. More recently, following a very informative and shocking presentation on the use of plastic, they have encouraged our school community not to use single-use plastic and offered sustainable, alternative solutions. As a result, recycling boxes for plastics have now been put in place in the dining area.

 The children love the sense of being able to help the environment in their roles as stewards of creation and have even more ideas to promote sustainability in our school and wider communities.