Opoutere school whole school vision By Ben, Sam and Jacob.

Where it all started Opoutere School has always had an interest in the environment, but never a whole school vision. In 2009 Mr Dyer and a keen bunch of students had a great idea of starting an envirogroup and being part of the enviroschool’s programme. The entire school, including staff took part in developing a whole school vision. Over time ideas were gathered and community partnerships strengthened. We held working bees to create a shade house in partnership with the Wharekawa Catchment Care Group and to develop a native area at the rear of the school. Strong parent/community support made this project a reality.

The Allgreenz formed and begun some projects around the school including; Paper recycling (Paper 4 Trees) Growing native trees from seed Creating 2 worm farms (food scraps and paper) Caring for the Vege gardens In 2010, we had a huge Clean Up Green Up Day to help raise money for future environmental projects. We tidied up the whole school and planted over 300 native trees and shrubs. During the morning the whole school contributed some ideas of what to add to our whole school vision and came up with some amazing ideas.

Putting together the whole school vision With all of your feedback, we sat down with Deli, our enviroschools facilitator, and discussed your ideas about our vision. We spent a lot of time discussing your ideas and came up with all the things we valued and the things we needed to work on. You talked about areas of the school we enjoy and areas that you felt we could make better. The Allgreenz and Deli, sorted your ideas into four headings. People and Participation, Places, Programmes and Practices.

People and participation This means decisions are made with the involvement of students, staff and other members of the community. Most of the school think that we turn off the computers and copier after school. Some of us think we use water saving devices and practices Probably only a quarter of the school thinks that we refill the printer and copier after school. Quite a few people think that we encourage the eating of local kai and drinking of fresh water. Half of the school thinks that we have packing free Lunches. We are careful with how much photocopying we do although could be better.

Places Our physical surroundings – buildings, grounds, gardens, animal life, local area. We’re pretty pleased with our natural surroundings... we can work on what we’ve got. We separate our rubbish really well. We need to maintain our natural environment and care for it. We have a great worm farm and could develop a compost system. We would like more art work in our environment. We have a great habitat for wildlife. We would like to develop more food gardens and grow fruit and vegetables to cook with. We’d like to investigate plants that don’t need too much water because summer is so hot.

programmes Students taking action on real issues in the school and wider community. Developing a whole school curriculum. We did a whole school inquiry on rubbish 2 years ago We have guest speakers come and talk to us about the environment. Individual classes take part in class programmes focussing on the environment. Some topics covered are; composting, recycling, weedbusting, energy conservation, watching environmental videos, zero waste, artwork around the school. Allgreenz group meet weekly and carry out jobs Biannual Marae trip Beach Clean Up

practices Being an environmentally friendly and sustainable school We’re pretty good at switching off appliances. We’re trying to save water as much as possible. We could make some rules about packaging free lunches. We are already pretty careful about how much printing we do and recycling old copies. We try to use sustainable transport like taking the bus and sharing cars. We could look at recycling things like ink cartridges. Everyone in our school community knows about our sustainable practices.

Bronze EnviroSchool Some senior Allgreenz students had a discussion with our Envirogroup facilitators, Becky and Deli, and added some more ideas to our vision. They also reflected on some things that we could do better. After the talk, we decided that as a whole school we were a bronze enviroschool. Next Wednesday we can all celebrate our achievements so far. Andrea the Regional co-ordinator and other guests will be here to present us with our bronze award.

Opoutere School bronze summary This is a summary of what we discussed with Becky: Before we decided if we were a bronze school we reflected on everything we had achieved over the last couple of years. During the reflection process we talked about diversity comparing it to iceream like hokey pokey and chocolate and how we respect different people’s abilities. We created a reflection matrix of what environmental things we have done in the last few years. We looked at key areas and guiding principles we all decided we are a Bronze School. We have done so much in the past except our rubbish problem hasn’t improved as much as it could. We are really strong on Maori perspective and respecting diversity. We are including all guiding principles to some extent. We are very good on sustainable communities. We need to work on empowered students. Our next steps are working towards our silver award (of course after we have our bronze award), keep going on environmental trips and maybe sorting our rubbish problem so not to attract rats. Our challenges are getting it out to everyone, educating the children, fundraising for improvement and using the senior reflection team to go round class rooms and tell students about what the bronze award is. We all think Opoutere School is ready for a Bronze Award!

Congratulations Opoutere School. WE did it Congratulations Opoutere School! WE did it. We are now a Bronze enviroschool.