Recently Stanstead nursery and primary School in Rise Park was awarded its SCoRE (Schools’ Collaboration on Resource Efficiency) status.  The children at Stanstead took part in a week-long Eco programme taking an active part in measuring and assessing their school’s current energy efficiency.

They used the results of their work to decide which five energy saving pledges the school needs to take to cut its energy bills and lower carbon emissions.  Nottingham City Council’s Portfolio Holder for Energy and Sustainability Councillor Alan Clark, was a guest at the final celebration assembly and announced the pledges to the school.  They vowed to turn off the lights, taps and projectors, to use the right recycling bins and to take the energy saving message back to their homes.  With energy bills being such a high proportion of school spending, these changes of behaviour for the school can make a huge difference to the school’s finances.

Cllr Clark said: “The SCoRE programme is a great opportunity to inform, educate and equip our next generation of decision makers about energy, sustainability and climate change. It’s really important that our young people understand the impact they can have on the environment.  With the end of term looming I was particularly pleased that they have vowed to take the message home and carry on the good work that they have started at school.”

Teresa Terzza, the teacher who organised the week, said: “Taking part in the SCoRE programme has given a real lift to our last week of term.  Traditionally there tends to be a lull in this week but the atmosphere at the school was buzzing. It is a really engaging programme of workshops and even those children who can at times find it difficult to engage with the curriculum joined in and learnt lots.”

Over the last two years there has been a series of behavioural change events at the school and Energy Officers from Nottingham City Council have worked with the school to see what investment the school could make to become more energy efficient.  Following a bespoke energy survey, Stanstead changed all outside lighting to more energy efficient LEDs, overhauled time programmes and thermostats on school boilers, reduced demand on their air conditioning system and had a brand new energy efficient heating system installed.

This combination of technical and behavioural change measures over the past two years has resulted in a fantastic saving of 45% in gas consumption equating to 27 tonnes in carbon saving and a further saving of 16% in electricity usage equating to 31 tonnes in carbon saving.

Nottingham City Council’s SCoRE (Schools Collaboration on Resource Efficiency) programme is a national award winning programme and offers all schools and community groups across Nottingham the opportunity to receive expert support, advice and finance to deliver behavioural change and energy efficiency measures, in a bid to become more eco-friendly, sustainable, cut energy usage, associated costs and emissions.

This service is free to schools. To find out more about the programme and availability for 2015 / 2016, please contact Ruth Zoumides on 0115 876 5626.  To date, the SCoRE programme has visited over 30 schools in Nottingham reaching around 9,050 pupils and 850 members of teaching and non-teaching staff.

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For further information on the SCoRE project please contact Ruth Zoumides, Nottingham City Council Communications Team, on 0115 876 5626 or by email at ruth.zoumides@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

For further media information please contact Ruth Stallwood, Nottingham City Council Communications Team, on 0115 876 2900or by email at ruth.stallwood@nottinghamcity.gov.uk