A brilliant end to the first half of term with our 3-day ‘One World’ festival. The festival had an environmental theme where the children explored the impact humans have on the environment and the opportunities and challenges of moving towards carbon neutrality.
The festival started with the chance to investigate our environmental footprint on the earth through an assembly, a virtual reality workshop and songs on the theme. The children learnt how to make positive differences through upcycling discarded furniture, using renewable energy sources to make solar powered moving bugs, taking part in real scientific research to monitor the impact of climate change on penguin populations and investigated our food carbon footprint.
Pupils reflected on the beauty & complexity of the natural world through environmental art, symmetry in nature and work on David Attenborough's amazing wildlife film footage.
On Thursday, through writing speeches & producing films & posters on environmental problems, we saw how everyone, no matter how young, can speak up for environmental issues. The children presented their well-researched speeches and films with real passion.
The week culminated in a visit from 2 authors, Tim Tilley & Sara Louise, whose books (Witch Storm / Betty Honeybee) have strong environmental themes running through them.
Environmental work like this is important to us at St Ives. We want to inspire the children to want to make a difference and look after the world they live in. It is work like this which helped us gain our Eco Schools Green Flag in 2020 & why we were shortlisted in the environmental category at the Independent School of the Year Awards 2019.