Sustainability

Practices

Good sustainability practices are valued by the whole Chatham school community who believe that it is important that we educate the children of today about the impact that their actions will have on the future of our planet.

Together with our staff and the leadership and experience of our students, we are continuing to develop our focus and understandings of this most important perspective of our time.

Over the last few years, we have evolved a number of practices that have developed our understanding of this important area within our community. This is reflected by the provision of a Chatham Primary School Grounds Masterplan that has been adopted by the Chatham School Council in 2019.

This plan embodies our commitment and focus on sustainability, and also reflects our history with this evolving area.

During the last 18 months, the school has secured a number of grants from Federal and State Governments together with public companies and philanthropic organisations. These have included:

• $10,000 Federal grant to create an area of biodiversity at the front of our school [2019-2020]

• $20,000 local schools community fund to create a space for connectedness, inclusion and sustainability [2019-2020]

• $200,000 State grant to construct an inclusive Chatham Kitchen Garden and Community Precinct inculcating communal values and mores around sustainability [2019-2020]

• $5,500 State grant to develop a sustainable and culturally significant Koori Garden for the Chatham precinct [2019]

Environmental sustainability in our curriculum

Consistent with the Victorian Curriculum, our application of environmental sustainability is evolving and developing for the future.

As part of our Inquiry concept approach, students explore and investigate their areas of interests across a wide range of sustainable topics and practices. Some of the following are pursuits that have occurred in recent times:

• The Year 6s research, design and create models of their ideal sustainable home.  

• As part of our Japanese program, we look at the sustainability practices that they have in place in Japan, especially comparing the similarities and the differences and investigating why they are different.

• Year 3s undertook work on the use of Palm Oil, writing letters to various companies that use Palm Oil in their products and also to the Prime Minister. The Year 3s then visited the Prep, Year 1 and Year 2 classrooms and shared the information with them as part of a mentoring project.

A whole-school approach

Our sustainable practices involve the whole school community. The School Council has a significant role in the leadership and development of our sustainability focus at Chatham. This occurs through the following committees of school council:

• The Education Committee – this group continues to review the philosophies and underpinnings of sustainability and related initiatives, and how these align with the School Strategic Plan and the Victorian Curriculum.

• The Buildings and Grounds Committee – this group continues to create and review emerging projects in relation to sustainability practices and facilities.

At the school level, in relation to students, the following are some examples of our focus on sustainability:

• As part of our Year 6 Leadership Program we have four Environment Leaders who work across the school organising special days, running events, working around the school grounds and delivering the message of sustainability to all students.

• Our Years 1s collect the water buckets from the water taps, our Years 2s look after composting, our Year 3s organise the rubbish collection and our Year 4s look after recycling.

• Students collect the eggs each morning, feed the chooks and return them back to their new chicken coup at the end of each day.

The students are genuinely enthusiastic and interested in making our school, our community and our world a more sustainable place to be.