By Callum Ludwig
Wandin North Primary School has been named as a finalist in three categories of the Sustainability Victoria’s 2024 ResourceSmart Schools Awards.
Despite only jumping onboard the ResourceSmart initiative in 2023, Wandin North Primary School’s progress has earned them nominations for Curriculum Leadership School of the Year and Emerging School of the Year, as well as the Teacher of the Year (Primary) nomination for Sustainability and Environment Teacher Laura Attrill.
Ms Attrill said they joined ResourceSmart Schools so that they could measure the school’s resource use and monitor changes and improvements over time.
“At the start of 2023 we implemented a new specialist class based around sustainability and we called it H.E.R.O.E.S which stands for Harvest, Eat, Record, Observe, Environment and Sustainability but is also a play on words as our students refer to themselves as heroes for the planet,” she said.
“Since starting the program we have developed and built a huge kitchen garden, a citrus patch, a school orchard, an Indigenous garden and a pollinator garden. The children love working in the kitchen garden, harvesting their crops and then cooking their produce, and this has linked to their Sustainability learning as they know the importance of eating seasonal, local produce,”
“The students at Wandin North Primary School built the pollinator garden after learning about the critical role our pollinators play in food production and the need to encourage pollinators to come on our school grounds to pollinate the kitchen garden and orchards.”
Wandin North Primary School has risen up the ResourceSmart ranks in record time, already having achieved two-star status (maximum of five stars).
Ms Attrill said she is so proud of all of the work they have done in the past year since joining ResourceSmart Schools and it is fantastic that they are being recognised for their efforts.
“They are passionate about caring for and preserving our local environment and fundraised for the Helmeted Honeyeater and the Leadbeater’s Possum in 2023,” she said.
“They have become junior citizen scientists and participated in larger scale environmental efforts such as the Platy-Project, Backyard Bird Count, Clean Up Australia Day and love doing our Resource Smart School audits to collect data about our school,”
“The students themselves have completed the biodiversity, waste and litter audits to help us achieve our results so they need to be so proud of themselves.”
To achieve two stars, Wandin North Primary School has established a sustainability plan involving the whole school and gone to actively engage the whole school in sustainability issues and opportunities and who can help.
Ms Attrill said there is always something exciting happening in HEROES.
“This term we are focussing on organic waste which doesn’t seem exciting to some but we are loving learning about all the different ways we can dispose of it,” she said.
“Our junior years are making ‘wormeries’ in recycled jars to take home in the coming weeks using wormlets from our school worm farms. The children are very excited to have their own worm farms at home.”
To continue to ascend in star status, Wandin North Primary School can strategically plan to integrate sustainability education into the campus, curriculum and community, with students actively involved in a creating a system approach to the school’s resource use.
Then, they need to measure, monitor and document learning and improvements to the system and a facilitator can come out to check and make suggestions to help the school achieve five-star Leadership School status, wherein the school is mentoring others through sharing their sustainability journey.
Wandin North Primary School Principal Paul Bailey said the program at Wandin North would not be what it is today without the time and commitment Laura puts into it.
“Laura’s passion and persistence for sustainability has influenced a change in thinking and ways of working at Wandin North Primary School,” he said.
“Laura has introduced lunchtime clubs, school chickens, harvest-to-plate cooking and strong curriculum theory and our students have strong connections with theory and practical lessons that has lead to an increased proactivity outside of the Sustainability program such as looking for litter to pick up at playtimes, ensure the chickens are looked after, monitoring our two orchards to ensure the students continue to respect the areas.”
Wandin North Primary School’s sustainability journey has also taken them to the 2023 Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show and the 2023 Victorian Schools Garden Awards.
Mr Bailey said being a ResourceSmart school has increased the awareness of staff and students of the impact they have on our environment.
“Our school has reviewed and edited key policies to ensure our practice is embedded and aligns with ResourceSmart. We have reduced the amount of landfill staff and student are bringing to school through our Sustainability Captains monitoring and collecting house points and all classes have compost buckets for our worm farms,” he said.
“We now have a better understanding of the biodiversity of our site and how we can continue and enhance our environment.”
