Celebrating our centenary in 2019 led the Hilden Oaks community to think about the future and to ask the question ‘How sustainable is the school?'  This together with the children's enthusiasm to 'do something' about the single use plastic issue, has prompted us to adopt the philosophy of One Planet.  We only have one planet from which to draw resources and yet we are all living in the west as if we had three or four planets to consume. 

At the school we have started by choosing three areas to focus on

• zero waste

• our use of Products and Materials

• developing Sustainable Water

We have initiated our response on three levels

• what the children are taught in the curriculum

• how we manage our estate

• how we support the local and global community.

For example, in their curriculum, the children are taught a topic about water for a whole term in geography lessons. They learn about the physical and urban water cycle, about drought and water management, rivers and pollution. The school estate has reviewed how water is managed on site and the children have appointed water monitors to ensure no water is wasted. Hilden Oaks also supports their local community by offering a free water bottle refill service and water bottles have been sent (full of school supplies) to a nursery in Gambia to enable the children there to have clean water throughout their day.