Every year, the prestigious Ashden Awards honours two schools that have really proved themselves to be proactive in their pursuit of a greener education. The Ashden Awards reward and promote excellent local sustainable energy solutions in the UK and the developing world. By rewarding the best, they raise awareness of the huge potential of local sustainable energy to both tackle climate change and improve the quality of people's lives. This year’s awards ceremony took place last month and was attended by global environmental campaigner and former US vice president Al Gore. Education Today spoke to this year’s winners and last year’s to see what they achieved in order to win an award and what they have done or plan to do with the prize money.

The winner of the 2007 Ashden Award is Woodheys Primary School in Sale, Greater Manchester. It has 353 pupils, 14 teachers and 25 non-teaching staff. Woodheys has established a programme of activities that ensures good management of energy within the school. Pupils take a leading role in this with the Eco School Council involved in decision making, Ecomonitors in each class, the Energy Team responsible for meter reading, random checks on classrooms and informing the whole school community at governors’ meetings, school assemblies and in lesson times throughout the school.

Woodheys commissioned an energy audit in 1999 and since then it has worked through a planned programme of efficiency improvements including insulation, draught proofing, better controls on heating and double-glazing. These measures have helped the school reduce gas consumption by 30 per cent over seven years. Although the school has taken steps to reduce electricity use, this has increased due to the expansion of IT equipment during this period but this too is now almost back to 1999 levels.

This has been achieved by use of low-energy lighting and insistence on the most energy efficient IT equipment when it was being installed. The school installed a 2 kWp photovoltaic array in 2005 and an electronic display unit that records the amount of electricity generated. Although his only provides three per cent of current electricity use, the array and monitoring display demonstrate to the community that solar PV is feasible in the UK and provides a valuable learning tool for the children.

Woodheys has achieved many accolades for its environmental activities, notably attaining Eco-Schools Green Flag status and winning an award for Environmental Cleanliness. Its work on education for sustainable development is highly rated by government inspector and is used as a role model for other schools.

Freda Eyden, the school’s Environmental Projects Co-ordinator said “We are so proud of all our children, especially the Energy Team. They have worked hard but it’s been fun and interesting along the way and look at the great result. We’re all committed now to carrying on the good work and other schools could easily do what we have done. Just visit www.ashdenawards.org for lots of good ideas. Saving energy, money and getting to meet Al Gore! It doesn’t get much better than this!”

Amy, Ben, Mollie, Hayley and Ben, were the five Year 6 members of the Woodheys Primary School Energy Team who attended the special ceremony held at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

“To win the prize we had to convince the children and teachers to save energy. Every Thursday we read the meters and we also check the radiators to see if they are working efficiently”, said the two Bens. “Then we come up with competitions and ideas to involve and encourage everyone.”

Amy was the lucky team member chosen to receive the trophy with Head Teacher Laura Daniels. “The evening was amazing! Seeing all these different people from around the world and the moment I met Al Gore was an experience I’ll never forget.” “We are also training up eight Year 5 children to take over next year once we have left Woodheys”, added Mollie.

“The night was inspirational. We learned so much and we’ll never forget the moment we won!” said Hayley. “We also hope when we are older, we will help the planet as much as Al Gore has done.” Second prize winner this year was Seaton Primary School in Devon. It has 343 pupils, 16 teachers and 36 nonteaching staff. Seaton is one of the few schools in the UK to have installed a range of renewable energy technologies. It has a 2.5kW wind turbine and a 4.7 kW PV array which supply electricity to the school, and 48m square of solar water heating panels, which provide warm water for the school’s outdoor swimming pool. An energy audit has identified efficiency measures that can reduce energy demand and the school Energy Policy and Action Plan has set priorities for implementing these, some of which have already been addressed.

The renewable energy technologies provide outstanding learning opportunities for the pupils. They can see renewable energy in action in their own school; this helps to stimulate interest in energy issues. Pupils in the Eco Club and class Energy Agents help to reduce energy wastage by ensuring lights and equipment are switched off when not required and doors and windows are closed to prevent heat loss. The on-site renewables generated about 4.5Mwh of electricity in 2006, which reduced the carbon emissions of the school by about two tonnes a year. Efficiency measures probably saved around a similar amount of electricity.

Alan Simpson, Head Teacher, told Education Today, “Naturally we are delighted to have won the award, although slightly disappointed that we didn’t get the first prize. We are a ‘normal’ small town primary school in a beautiful part of the world on the edge of East Devon and on the Heritage Jurassic Coast. Developing the sustainable ethos ‘Caring now, for the future’ was a natural step for the school and has proved a very useful tool for creating an exciting and child-centred curriculum.

“It is also a super framework for meeting the Every Child Matters agenda – our care of pupils was given an outstanding by Ofsted last year. The windturbine and PV panels producing electricity for the school, and the solar panels helping to warm the water in the swimming pool, are the icing on our cake, providing the children the opportunity to see at first-hand good examples of what is possible for the future.

“They have helped to reduce our electricity bill by about eight per cent in the last year. However, it is the day-to-day good practice that makes the biggest difference in terms of energy saving. When the children are taught good habits about being energy conscious, switching things off and closing doors, they take the message home and become the best ambassadors for change in society.

“Surely, if we are going to cut global warming as a nation, it is important for all schools and their communities to get this message, and I would urge the government to look at making it a part of every school’s curriculum. Perhaps they should take a good look at the Ashden Awards new education resources, available on their website.

“We will be using our prize money to purchase some energy saving devices such as sensors and time-switches to help cut our electricity bill further. However, we are also hoping to improve our website, so that weather data and energy data can be displayed and hopefully used by other schools to learn about renewable energy. I am also committed to helping other schools follow our example.”

Last year’s joint winners were Eastchurch Primary School and Cassop Primary School. Eastchurch is a state-funded Church of England school with 285 pupils. It serves Eastchurch and two other villages on the Isle of Sheppey, a relatively poor area with a high percentage of students receiving free meals.

Since 1998, the school has had a programme of improving energy efficiency, including low-energy lighting, covered areas to reduce heat-loss from doors and replacement of kitchen equipment with energy-efficient devices. A 3 kWp PV array was installed in 2005 linked to a prominent display outside the canteen. Each class has an Energy Monitor and an Eteam checks classrooms each lunchtime and records observations in a book. Data from the PV display is used in maths teaching and problem solving.

Pauline Shipley, Head Teacher at Eastchurch told Education Today; “It was an honour and a pleasure to have won an Ashden Award. The whole school celebrated this amazing achievement and we have been celebrating ever since with the publicity it has given the school. We are going to use the money to purchase wind turbines to be erected in the school grounds and are currently seeking planning permission for them. It is a fantastic time for Eastchurch School and the children are very excited about the developments that are happening.”

Cassop Primary School serves two former coal-mining villages in Durham. It has 94 pupils aged from four to 11-years-old. Its programme to make its use of energy more sustainable started in 1995 when it replaced its light bulbs with compact fluorescents. In 1998, the school installed a wind turbine, which generates about 50 MWh of electricity a year. In 2003, the old boiler was replaced with an automated wood-pellet boiler, which uses pellets recycled locally. A PV array was installed in 2005 and the use of sustainable energy is integrated into the curriculum with a broader focus on social responsibility.

Jim McManners told Education Today of the work that has gone on since winning the Ashden Award last year. “We haven’t stopped since last year and were in London again last month during the awards to give a group presentation on climate change, as a direct result of last year’s award.

“The Ashden Award recognised the work we were doing and a lot of strands from that have led on. We have a link with a school in Kenya. We had provided one set of solar panels and we raised enough money for another set, which will light up two more classrooms. This is in an area with no electricity for 50 miles. We have also been involved in the Peter Scott project for Rocket stoves – energy efficient ovens that tackle the problem of deforestation.

“Closer to home we are trying to work with two villages encouraging them to insulate their homes better, this is achieved through the village children we teach. We have a Green Team – they meet half-termly and make recommendations. They suggested paper recycling, which we have now introduced although I was initially concerned about the fire risk. They are now asking that we replace the taps with push button versions to save water.

“What Ashden did was to give us a boost. The £10,000 prize money has now been more than matched with fund-raising and stands at closer to £40,000. We are equipping a classroom with some of this for visiting schools to see what we are doing. It helped us along the route and encouraged us with a network of international contacts.”

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