Pride of Guernsey: Clare Giles and St Martin’s Primary School
Clare Giles and St Martin’s Primary School have been nominated for the Sustainability Hero award.
Mrs Giles described the school’s journey to becoming more eco-friendly: three years ago, at the start of the school’s Rights Respecting Child journey, the St Martin’s car park at the end of the day was full of cars. Bearing in mind the 550 children who leave school at the end of the day, it was not a clean environment.
‘The children approached me and said they felt there was too much pollution around our school and we wanted a cleaner environment, as well as greater accessibility and awareness. Traffic and Highways came to school and created a plan to reduce emissions in parish lanes, allowing 550 children to go home in a cleaner environment. More than nine out of 10 of our children now travel to and from school in a cleaner and safer environment.’
This plan in particular, the School’s Street Initiative, is the first in the Channel Islands.
Nominator Lindsay de Sausmarez praised the school’s efforts.
‘As transport is the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Guernsey, and as St Martin’s is the third-biggest school in the Bailiwick, reducing the number of car journeys so significantly is possibly one of the most impactful and effective initiatives undertaken to date in shrinking the island’s carbon footprint.
Clare’s empathetic leadership and the children’s energy and determination have shown that a deep-rooted culture can evolve to become much more sustainable, with benefits to the whole community and future generations as well.’
