To put sustainability at the heart of the School’s development by educating our community about environmental issues and by adopting effective sustainability practice that has a positive impact on local, national and international communities. This is based on two key principles: By raising levels of sustainability literacy, we will educate our staff and students (and their families) about our individual and collective responsibilities. Through a variety of learning opportunities, including outdoor education, students will understand their role in sustainability and the benefits it will bring to them as well as the wider community. As well as raising awareness of environmental issues, we seek to achieve outstanding environmental performance in the way that the School is run and is seen to be run. By limiting the negative impact of our institution on the environment – and by taking responsibility for and, where possible, mitigating the impact of its operation – we aim to implement effective sustainability practice. Above all, we recognise that it is vital for us to reduce our carbon footprint and work towards becoming carbon neutral. By seeking to improve the quality of our school and local environment – and by promoting the benefits of increased interaction with the natural world – we intend to safeguard the health and wellbeing of our School and wider communities. A copy of our latest Beaumont School Sustainability Strategy Plan can be viewed here.Our Sustainability Vision
Environmental Sustainability Education
Positive and Impactful Sustainability Practice
As part of our Sustainability Strategy Plan, students and staff have worked together to create a Student Eco-Code:
Here are the some of the activities undertaken by members of the school community to develop our Sustainability … April 2025 It has officially been agreed that Beaumont is going to be one of the first schools to offer Carbon Literacy training as a Skill option for students completing their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Awards. This will be run by in-school by our Sustainability Lead Mrs Gorham from September 2026. March 2025 Students created and ran a successful British Science Week ass February 2025 On Monday 10 February, Amanda Yorwerth from Environment Matters on Verulum Radio Mix 92.6, interviewed members of the Eco-Council and Sustainability Club to find out how our rewilding programme is going, and, in particular, how we are utilising resources and support from the National Education Nature Park programme. Listen to the Podcast here! On Tuesday 11 February, four members of our Eco Council attended the Hertfordshire County Council YouthCOP event at North Herts College in Stevenage along with 28 other schools from across the county. They were a credit to our school, engaging enthusiastically in climate summit role play, workshops on a range of topics from supporting biodiversity to flood mitigation in schools, and took advantage of an excellent careers fair, talking to members of businesses and organisations in the “Green” industry sector. They have been tasked to create a video to share what they learned – watch this space to find out more! On Friday 14 February, Trudie Gorham (Sustainability Lead) ran the first staff INSET session on Carbon Literacy. Staff had a run through of what carbon footprint is, how we can reduce it, why it is important we reduce it and how, as staff at school, we can reduce Beaumont’s carbon emissions. Positive feedback suggests it helped increase staff awareness, gave them tools and actions to take into their home life and also at school. This will help our goal of becoming a zero carbon school by 2030! January 2025 Students in the Sustainability Club and in KS3 Science lessons took part in the Big School Birdwatch, learning not only about the importance of Citizen Science projects, but also collecting some important data for the RSPB, to allow them to continue to monitor the state of British bird populations each year. They also had some well-needed outdoor education, and we all know how important it is to get a daily dose of nature for our mental wellbeing! December 2024 Students f October 2024 On Friday 18 October, Beaumont took part in its first ever Just One Tree day. This was an initiative aimed at raising £1 from as many students as possible, to be used to plant a tree in a part of the world badly affected by deforestation and biodiversity loss. I am pleased to announce we raised £101! Beaumont School’s ‘forest’ now stands at 107 trees and will continue to grow each time we take part in this annual e August We are very pleased to announce that we have been awarded the Eco-SchoolGreen Award, with Distinction, for our sustainability work in 23/24. The assessors were very impressed and mentioned that Beaumont’s application truly stood out and it is evident that young people at Beaumont are aware of environmental issues and passionate about protecting our planet.
July Personal Development Week was kicked off for Year 7 with their annual Sustainability Day. This year’s focus was waste, and the day started by all students being asked to throw NOTHING in the bin all day! They were to keep all their waste to see how much Year 7 create in a day. They then had an assembly from Monika Koziara of Waste Aware Hertfordshire, learning about how waste is dealt with here in St Albans, before predicting the outcome of our waste audit in their forms. The rest of the day involved many fun activities highlighting the global issue of waste, including food waste (where they made suggestions for the school to implement next year), fast fashion (where they took part in Beaumont’s first ever clothes swap event, and donated a large bag of unwanted clothes to a local charity shop) and litter (where they took part in a community litter pick in the streets and parks near to our school). At the end of the day, after viewing how much waste they created, they had fun designing ways to stop waste being waste, and turning items normally thrown away into useful items and artwork to raise awareness. They hopefully learned a lot about the impact our waste has on the environment, and most importantly how we can all reduce our waste and reuse and recycle items instead! June 2024 May 2024 Beaumont has become the first school in St Albans District to sign up to Let’s Go Zero’s Climate Action Advisor programme. We are really looking forward to improving sustainability even more and are excited to work with independent climate experts at Let’s Go Zero in the future. Watch this space for more exciting changes as we aim to be a zero carbon school by 2030. April 2024 Exciting news! The first ever Beaumont Eco-Council was launched by Mrs Gorham in assemblies to years 7-10. One member from each form will be representatives on the council, which will be chaired by our Sustainability Lunchtime Club. The first meeting will be soon, to decide on a plan of action for SustFest 2024, and our Autumn Term goals. Members of the Sustainability Club have also added wildflower seeds and native plants to our rewilding area behind and around E block. Lots of flowers are appearing already with Spring in the air! Including buttercups, birdsfoot trefoil and daisies. March 2024 We celebrated the United Nations World Wildlife Day on the 3 March with KS3 students working in groups in their computer science lessons to design a new piece of technology to help wildlife conservation or human-wildlife coexistence. Excellent team work yielded some fab ideas! All forms were challenged to take part in the Big Plastic Count – where you had to count all the plastic you threw away/recycled in one week and submit your data online to a Greenpeace-organised national survey. Well done to 7E for having the most form members involved! They win a prize (to be delivered to their form room soon!) Three amazing Year 9 students from our sustainability lunchtime club took their Teach the Teacher workshop and adapted it into an assembly for sixth form students, to help raise awareness of the climate crisis. They did a fantastic job speaking to hundreds of sixth formers, who then had a form time activity to discuss climate anxiety and positive action to help mitigate it and make a difference. January 2024 New food waste caddies provided in staff areas to cut down on food waste Instagram account @ Many classes across Year 7 and Year 8 took part in the Big Schools Birdwatch, either in their science lessons or in their gardens at home. They enjoyed identifying and recording birds they saw, and we uploaded the data to the RSPB to contribute to an excellent national citizen science project. November 2023 2023 Whole School Read launched based on the theme of Climate Change Year 10 Public Speaking Final debate topics were “Argue that provoking fear is the best method for inspiring positive change” and “Argue that provoking hope is the best method for inspiring positive change” October 2023 Beaumont moved to a Green electricity supplier for all our electricity contracts Beaumont joined the National Education Nature Park and completed the Hidden Nature Challenge to launch this (see October Beaumont Life) August 2023 Installation of the new Electric Charging points on the school site July 2023 Year 7 Sustainability Day April 2023 HomeRun app launched to help reduced carbon emissions through greater use of shared transport. New furniture purchased for use around the school made from recycled materials. Terracycle scheme introduced to enable office and stationery items to be recycled. September 2022 Year 7 students carried out an Energy Audit. The Whole School Read was Melt by Ele Fountain. The school achieved “Plastic-Free Status“. More water fountains located around the school to encourage the use of refillable water bottles. Tree-planting around the school site. July 2022 We launched our Switch Off campaign around the school to reduce our electricity usage. April 2022 Students and staff formed our first Sustainability Committee.Developing a Sustainable School
embly which they delivered to Year 7 and 8. This year’s theme was “Adapt and Change”. The assembly highlighted issues of plastic waste, its impact and how students can reduce this at school. The students explained why it is important to cut down on single-use packaging in school snacks, lunches and in Food Technology lessons (with guest star Mrs Denton!). They also introduced a student-designed poster competition for a Beaumont Zero Waste Lunch. This will be included in our new Year 7 Welcome Evening in the autumn. Some great entries have been received so far!
Five new Apple trees with a mixture of native varieties were kindly donated by Veolia.The lunchtime Sustainability Club, under the wise eye of our Biodiversity Lead Dr Bomphrey, planted the trees in the rewilding area at the edge of the school field. They are a brilliant addition to the Biodiversity in our school grounds and the blossom is currently being enjoyed by pollinators and students alike.
The Eco-Council had their first meeting of the year. We celebrated Phillippa Cowen winning a prize for her contribution to the Clean Air Competition run by Hertfordshire County Council for Clean Air Day 2024! Students then split into three groups, one for each area of Eco-focus for the year (litter, marine and healthy living). They worked on some targets and plans for improve our schools sustainability and environmental impact in these areas; watch this space for what they achieve!
rom the Eco-Council and lunchtime Sustainability Club researched, planned and delivered an assembly (on their own!) to whole year groups on how to have a sustainable Christmas. They did an outstanding job communicating some excellent ideas on what students and their families can do to reduce their environmental impact, at a time of year where waste and energy usage is at its highest. They were confident and clear in their delivery, and I am sure many staff and students were inspired to try some of their ideas over the holidays, and hopefully for future Christmases too!
vent. Our trees will be supporting a reforestation project in one of the following countries: Brazil, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nepal, Indonesia. Kenya or Zambia. Because of our donations, 107 tree seeds will be chosen and planted by Just One Tree partners in one of their nurseries. Once the next rainy season is upon us, our seedlings will be transported to their carefully selected new homes, where they will be planted and nurtured over the coming years. Our school’s forest will remove approximately 32.96 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over the next 25 years. I am positive next year we will raise even more money, and help our forest grow even more. Thank you to all students and members of the Beaumont community who donated.
2024
2024
Fourteen members of Beaumont’s newly-formed Eco-Council attended the University of Hertfordshire on Tuesday 11 June, to take part in a KS3 Climate Change Summit. The summit was organised by STEM Learning and the Herts, Essex, Beds & Milton Keynes Science Learning Partnership. It was a fantastic day of keynote speakers and workshops run by climate change experts, along with a “marketplace” of stalls led by charities and companies working in green industries and supporting climate change education. Our students were a credit to the school, asking excellent questions, being fully engaged in activities and most of all enjoying and getting the most out of a day focussed on a critically important issue that affects us all. I look forward to seeing how their improved knowledge is brought back to the Eco-Council, and thus also the wider school community!
