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Energy and Climate change shows for schools Primary (Key stages 1 and 2) - "Watts up?" Secondary (Years 7 and 8, children of 11 - 13 years) - "The man from the council" Contact Chris Michael of MOMO Theatre for more details - tel. 01865 776427

General Material

Curricular materials dealing with sustainability issues are covered on a separate page.

Sustainable Learning - an energy and water management programme for schools funded by Central Government.  Schools on the programme have made energy savings averaging 10% and have a better understanding of how energy and water are used in their schools.  The programme works best if all school users are engaged – pupils, teachers and non-teaching staff.  

The Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC) is a mandatory scheme that started in April 2010 which applies to large organisations in the UK - including larger schools - and is intended to bring about an improvement in energy efficiency and a reduction in carbon emissions.  The CRC is a complex scheme, but a relatively straightforward leaflet on the subject has been produced by the London Energy Project (1.29MB - pdf help).  For more detail, a concise (99 page) CRC user guide can be downloaded from the CRC webpage of the Department of Energy and Climate Change.  Although the broad thrust of the scheme remains unchanged, the details have been revised (for example, payments will no longer be recycled back to participants) and this section of the website will be amended to reflect those changes soon.

The Carbon Trust has produced a free guide (downloadable) entitled Whole School Approach, (CTV037) which provides a checklist for buildings, and information on monitoring consumption and benchmarking.  Other useful resources from the Carbon Trust include a factsheet (95KB - pdf help) for schools on Energy Saving (GIL 147) and slides (2.69MB - pdf help) on Energy Management for Schools.  The Carbon Trust's Collaborative Low Carbon Schools Service for local authorities has generated further resource documents, including Practical, fast-track, whole school savings (523KB - pdf help);  Getting the benefit from automatic meter reading (AMR (2.23MB - pdf help)); and Taking control of your heating (1.16MB - pdf help).

The Energy Saving Trust’s Energy Certification Scheme for Schools – developed by CREATE & funded by the former Department for Education and Skills (DES) - encourages schools to use the school building and its energy use as a learning tool.  Schools need to register and are emailed on a monthly basis with a request for meter readings.  They then receive immediate feedback on consumption, including abnormal usage patterns and suggestions.  

CABE (Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment) facilitates an Annual Green Day for schools, with the next one ikely to be in June 2011.  CABE provides a climate change activity kit for schools to provide ideas, activities and resources for holding a green day in your school.  Green Day is suitable for both primary and secondary schools, and there is a menu of more than 100 activities for KS2 and KS3 which teachers can choose between and adapt.  The activity kit contains lots of useful links to other resources and can be easily adapted for KS1 and KS4.  It’s also a useful resource for staff INSET and training.

Carbon footprint calculator - REAP petite is a software tool developed by SEI-Y to help community organisations including schools to calculate their ecological or carbon footprint and test the effectiveness of a number of footprint reducing pledges or other changes.  Schools or voluntary groups could use the tool themselves as part of their environmental activities. It can be used to support campaigning, fund-raising, awareness raising, or simply as an exercise in itself.  It enables a community group or school to calculate a carbon footprint for the organisation as a whole, using data collected from an unlimited number of individuals (by questionnaire).

Funding for energy efficiency measures:

• Salix Finance, an independent, publicly funded, not-for-profit company provides interest-free loans to schools for investing in energy efficiency projects.