Since 2009, we have championed agency at Brecknock. We have been teaching the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals since their inception in 2015. We know that many of you join us in understanding the importance of this aspect of education. The federation is currently developing our Climate Action Plan 2025 which will incorporate the four pillars of DfE sustainability and climate change strategy for education.
We strongly believe in developing a new social contract for education – which the majority of educationalists are now starting to prioritise. However, we realise that this understanding of complex issues and opportunity is not enough – we need to give our children the tools to articulate and communicate their ideas through oracy. We are committed to making sure our children are environmentally literate.
Once children know their rights; they can be changemakers and can use the SDGs as a platform to take action. The rights of children are central to the SDGs in the social, economic and environmental spheres.
At Brecknock, the SDGs provide relevance in our curriculum. SDGs themes have been integrated across the school and turned into actionable projects within the community. Pupils can see how their agency will create change thereby giving them an intrinsic motivation and moral purpose to learn. As citizens and consumers, young people have values, beliefs and the ability to identify and challenge barriers to change.
The children knew they needed to awaken their communities, they raised their voices to ban single use plastic bottles in school in 2021 through the successful One Less Bottle and Water Only campaigns. Also, they have collectively worked with the council, businesses and social enterprise to rewild the school and community, inside and out.
We encourage community participation in all aspects of school life, including our environmental projects and we invited parents to help maintain and improve the Brecknock allotment. This, along with the support of the brilliantly vocal Brecknock Green Team culminated in Brecknock achieving the RHS Level 4 School Gardening Award in 2021.
We achieved Eco-Schools Silver Award with actions and progress made on the nine environment and sustainability topics; Energy, Water, Biodiversity, School grounds, Healthy living, Transport, Litter, Waste and Global citizenship. Children across the school applied to hold vital roles such as Tree Guardian (contributing to the Camden Forest 2025), Earth Protection Team Member or Green Team Representative. Once elected, regular meetings were held to implement school actions on these topics with children supported to make informed choices and ensure progress continued towards a more sustainable lifestyle.
The children continue to be changemakers. In 2023 Year 4 & 5 children from school council and the eco committee represented Brecknock at the Green Dragon’s Den Camden event. They were successful in their pitch for funding for a sustainability project in the school to a panel of Green Dragons. The Green Team made an impassioned pitch for a new school greenhouse to representatives from Think and Do, Camden Learning, Camden Climate Alliance, local businesses and Camden’s youth council leader. The children also fielded a number of tricky questions from the dragons, astounding them with their knowledge of SDG’s and climate change.
We have signed up to the Camden School Climate Charter 2030 and continue to make contributions to the Camden Climate Action Plan and the Camden Climate Pledge.
Outdoor learning, environment and sustainability education will continue to be at the heart of what we do at Brecknock. It is the green thread of learning that is woven throughout the school curriculum and is present in every project that happens in the school. We want to continue to set a green example to the Brecknock community and beyond!