Distribution of Reusable water bottles in Secondary, October 2025

In a huge win for our health and our planet, from November 2025 there will be no more single use plastic distributed in the canteen!

With the new double fountain installed during the summer, it was finally possible for volunteers to come together with a new canteen provider, ‘Sovite’ to end our biggest plastic pollution problem. In October seven volunteers spent 3 hours distributing 700+ reuseable bottles to the Secondary children, with more on the way in Primary.

Follow the whole story below!

New fountains in use – members of the Comitato Mensa

School Year 2024-25

Pupils, parents and teachers continue to express deep concerns about micro-plastics and health, and the excess of plastic waste around Secondary school grounds in our multi-stakeholder Building the Future we Want committee meetings. New parent volunteers step up to organise COMSEV and the Comitato Mensa and resolve to tackle the issue together with other concerned stakeholders.

School Year 2023-24

Our Building the Future we Want strategy gathers strength and direction from a newsletter and regular eco-committee meetings, where all school stakeholders gather to work together towards shared sustainability goals. Middle management roles are created in both the Primary and Secondary schools enabling learning and action to be shared, and project impacts magnified.

School Year 2022-23

Sustainability in our school gains an internal champion with funding from our Erasmus+ project The Greener Green. Our lead teacher from Primary works with AGSEV to update the Building the Future we Want strategy and integrate it into school planning process. School funds the installation of 7 water fountains around the grounds. This enables teachers to help Primary children to pour water from jugs, saving around 55,500 single use plastic bottles from the bin.

https://greenergreen.eurscva.eu/p3-fr-reducing-plastic 

2021-22: Through our Interparents network, AGSEV teams up with School leaders to apply for an Erasmus+ project, The Greener Green. Our school succeeded in winning E.35,000 in this capacity building project which enabled a number of teachers to study sustainability deeply while creating a digital teaching and learning platform and spreading their knowledge across local and European communities.

2021-22: Denise Sofia & Ally Micklem deliver the sustainability consultancy project: Building the Future we Want to the Director on behalf of AGSEV and the parents. Volunteers have developed a logo, mission and vision, governance toolkit, and a kick off programme of suggested actions emerging from 20 hours of interview and a through desktop research.

The Interparents action-group on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) is formed, seeking to raise awareness and build capacity across the school network.

2020-21: Parent volunteers Denise & Ally step up to run a sustainability consultancy project for our Director. They conducted 21 stakeholder interviews across 19 hours, reviewed UN and EU frameworks, benchmarked against other European schools, and delivered a full strategy with governance structures, vision, pillars, targets and a communications plan.   A Whole School Approach (WSA) is developed around key sustainability issues impacting our community. encompassing environmental footprint, social interconnection and sustainability education, underpinned by good governance and communications. One issue raised is plastic pollution and impacts on health.

2018: Our school joins the local Green School framework. New Covid safety and security regulations cause the glass water bottles in our canteen to be banned. We start collectively using 3000+ single use plastic bottles every week.