The VLT Environmental Sustainability Week 2024
The VLT Environmental Sustainability Week, held from Monday 11th November, 2024, was a huge success, with our school community coming together, alongside other students across the trust, to take part in a range of exciting challenges aimed at reducing our collective carbon footprints.
The week had three objectives:
• to understand the global commitment and response to climate change;
• to increase participation in the Trust-wide environmental sustainability week in particular reusing items to reduce our carbon footprint;
• to reduce our carbon footprint.
The Headteacher, from each of the Trust schools, read a pledge for the week, which was recorded and played in each school. A copy of the video, featuring impressive drone footage of our students, can be found here.
At RHS, the week saw the return of the ‘How Low Can You Go?’ challenge, which focused on the five Rs: Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose/Repair, Reduce, and Rethink. Throughout the week, students, staff and families took part in daily activities designed to promote sustainable practices and help lower our environmental impact. This included encouraging students to have a meat-free day (or week!), switching lights off when leaving a room and walking or cycling to school, where possible. All year groups and our staff got involved in the challenge, with valiant efforts across the board. As you can see from the results table below, it was the students in Year 10 who made the biggest difference in the week, with Year 8 coming in a close second place.
A highlight of the week was on Tuesday 12th November, 2024, a group of Year 7 students took part in a community litter pick, led by Alex Sim from the Hillingdon Community Litter Pickers Association. The students thoroughly involved cleaning up areas around the school, such as Jim O’Neill Walk. The team collected an impressive 14 bags of rubbish in just one hour, making a tangible impact on the local area.
In addition, there was a slogan and picture competition, where students submitted creative artwork to reflect the Trust’s commitment to environmental sustainability. The winning entries will be featured in a special edition of our newsletter at theend of the autumn term, showcasing the best of the week’s activities. Mr Gould, Assistant Headteacher, who led the week at RHS said: “We are really pleased that
all of our students made such a brilliant effort to think more carefully throughout the week about their carbon footprints. It was also
wonderful to see so many of them engaging in community projects and events related to sustainability. Well done everyone!”
We are proud of the collective efforts made by our school community to reduce our carbon footprints, and we thank everyone who participated in one of the many activities on offer.
