Pupil participation and cross-school working

The award requires our pupils to be actively involved as citizens in their neighbourhood. It also requires pupils to be engaged in decision-making and to be involved in planning that included not just the schools but the wider community. As we had won our award as a Cluster, it was natural to create a representative body from all of the schools. Primary school representatives from their pupil councils joined up with a Skillseeker trainee from one of the nurseries - who in turn liaises with both the small children and the nursery staff - and a group of 'eco-enthusiasts' from the high school pupils. This Cluster collective meets regularly (see Picture A), every two months, rotating the meeting place. Staff are present but the agenda belongs to the pupils. So far, the group has taken a number of important decisions. These have been arrived at through a two-way flow of ideas. Some come from individuals or classes in the various schools and are gathered in class or school assemblies, in ideas boxes and in informal discussion. These ideas are brought to the cluster groups by the representatives of the various schools to be discussed in the cross-school group. This group itself may add to the ideas and then decides the ways forward, sometimes after further discussion at school level.

The Cluster collective group brainstormed ideas to kick start the project but also invited guest speakers from the Council, local industry and other agencies to advise and be advised about developments in the community that had a bearing on reducing litter.

Quotations from pupils about the Cluster meetings

"Working together helps - it lets you share ideas with other people and gives you new ideas"

"Going to meetings reassures you and makes you more confident"

"It's good to meet people from other schools and to find out what they are doing"

"The high school people are older but sometimes we have really good ideas too"

"You can talk to anyone at the break time and the teachers listen to us"

"I like when we have an outside speaker though to begin with we were a bit shy with them but they like to hear our views and sometimes they can be quite helpful"

Other initiatives

There was a poster competition with colourful and striking winners properly printed and posted all over the town to involve the whole community (see Picture B). 'Litter pickers' (special long handled tongs to ensure safe handling of litter) and protective gloves were purchased for each school with most pupils, especially in the primary and nursery sectors, keen to 'have a go'. Litter black-spots were identified and surveys by the high school Eco Club classified different types of litter (see Picture C). High school pupils helped nursery school pupils with their 'litter picks' and confirmed the staff view that some pre-school pupils were quite good at recognising recurring labels - so the project also helped pre-reading skills!

The survey of black spots for litter produced some interesting findings. Imagine the embarrassment of the environmental services representatives at one of our collective meetings on being informed by our pupils that they had placed their bins in a key through-street for pupils so high up the lamp posts that few pupils younger than third year secondary could actually reach them! Appropriately child-friendly bins were purchased for schools' own playgrounds and others for nearby problem areas (see Pictures D and E). Representatives of the collective also participated in a national conference in Edinburgh.