Eco Group

What is Eco Group?

St Christopher's has been supporting the environment for well over 18 years, through their well-established Eco Group.

A group of nationally recognised pupils of all ages and various teachers, established by Director of Sustainability, Mrs Litherland and run by Eco Group Lead Mr Allen and Eco Coordinator Mr Gerrard. We have been part of the Eco-Schools program for 17 years, as an ambassador school, we are now on our 5th Green Flag, with distinction. Shortlisted as the TES school awards ‘Most Sustainable School’ in 2011 and 2018. It is our 18th birthday this year. Look out for more information on how we intend to celebrate this landmark occasion. Join us if you can!

Follow our activities on our X (Twitter) page by following this link.

Beyond the school gates

At St Christopher’s, we pride ourselves on working for others, be it growing produce for the school kitchen, or the community, looking after our own environment, from planting trees we will never live to see fully mature, to cleaning up the local area.

We also chair both the Hyndburn Eco Cluster Group which is over 15 years old and the Lancashire Sustainable Education Forum. Both groups meet termly sharing ideas/resources between the local schools and environmental providers and NGOs. All schools are welcome, and we’ve supported the set-up of various other cluster groups across the country. We represent local schools on the recently established Hyndburn Bourgh Council's Net Zero Working Group. We have recently taken on the role of lead North West school for UKSSN.

We have lots of partners and are proud to be working closely with the Prospects Foundation who are celebrating their 25th year of environmental action in Hyndburn. We are especially appreciative of Sonja Bottomer who enriches our lives week in week out with fresh opportunities in and out of school!

Our plan for 2024-25

From our first community initiative of Pledge 4 Veg, back in 2009, we have gone from strength to strength.

Key events

This year we are looking outwards and hoping to spread the message of solar power and other forms of renewable energy, as well as highlighting the fragility of our world in the 21st century. In October, our Eco group will be present at the Harvest Flower Festival at All Saints Church, unveiling our display titled “Use it Don’t Abuse it”, reflecting the importance of maintaining our world as there is no Planet B!

Another exciting opportunity to spread awareness of sustainability in East Lancashire at the Conference of Ribble Valley Schools (CORVS) will be open to Eco Group members in June 2025. A COP-style climate conference for East Lancashire Schools, CORVS 3 will be held at Oakhill College in Whalley. Last year, St Christopher’s gave a keynote presentation at CORVS 2, once again highlighting the importance of solar energy and promoting the efforts of Solar for Schools. We can’t wait to get started with our planning and preparation for CORVS 3 and are eagerly awaiting the agenda and timings for the day.

The annual Schools Sustainability Learning Conference at Ewood Park is returning in June 2025. After St Christopher’s took home several prizes at the conference last year, we are excited to be taking part again in 2025. Exact details are to follow, but we are expecting to have a large contingent of pupil volunteers at the event, working on stalls and as guides. Not to mention our famous Trashion Show held in coordination with our textiles department. By involving the students every step of the way, we hope they will learn and understand more about sustainable energy, both for now and in their own future careers.

Solar for Schools

In July 2023 our school installed solar panels thanks to the help and funding of Solar for Schools, and we are now taking up the mantle of encouraging other schools to do the same. In October, a group of pupils will travel with Mrs Litherland to St James’ Primary School in Chorley to give a demonstration on solar power to the children there in an effort to inspire the next generation of climate enthusiasts, as well as encourage the use of solar energy in primary schools county-wide. In addition, our solar ambassador students will travel to London with Community Rail Lancashire in November to give a presentation to Government ministers about the importance of solar energy in the education sector, and the work Solar for Schools is doing. This will provide an exciting opportunity to establish links between our own Eco Group and Westminster but will also be an exciting trip to the capital city for our pupils.

YGBC (Young Green Briton Challenge)

After the success of the Young Green Briton Challenge last year, with a group of our pupils making it to the YGBC finals at City Hall in London, St Christopher’s is taking part in the Challenge again in this academic year. The first step, an introductory assembly for Year 7 by YGBC staff, took place on the 4^th October. This is being followed by a series of eco-themed lessons delivered during their timetabled subjects. On Wednesday 6^th November the brilliant YGBC staff will visit again to run a Design Sprint Workshop for the whole of Year 7, where pupils will work in groups to design an invention or project to help St Christopher’s become more sustainable. Last year’s project that made it to the national finals was the “Eco Veggies” project which aimed combat food waste in our school kitchen. These ideas will then be presented to a panel of judges consisting of teachers and YGBC volunteers in a formal “Dragon’s Den” style day around Easter 2025. One winning project will be selected by the judges which will then go to the regional finals and potentially down to London again for the nationals. Thinking caps on!

Our Eco Captains