2016

English Martyrs Catholic Voluntary Academy

Totally Clued Up

North

280 Pupils Involved
  • UK Champion 2016
  • Regional Champion 2016

The Big 50 - Long Eaton to Bunkpurugu!

The project drew inspiration from the fact that the school was built 50 years ago this year.  It prompted the children to research how they impact upon the environment and to partner with a new school, which is being built at Bunkpurugu in Ghana.  Taking the number 50 as the theme, the children have pledged to save 50 trees worth of paper, to do 50 acts of eco-kindness, researched the food that grows within a 50 mile radius of the school and looked at the foods people were eating 50 years ago.  Along with walking the last 0.5 miles to school and communicating regularly with their new friends in Ghana, the children raised more than £3055 to aid in the construction of the new school there.

Jo Pettifer, teacher at English Martyrs’ Catholic Voluntary Academy, said: “The children are really proud to be an eco-friendly school and they wanted to use our 50th anniversary as an opportunity to see if we could be even ‘greener’. They also wanted to share the gift of education with another community, which gave us the idea to help build a new school in Ghana. 

The letters we exchanged with Ghanaian pupils taught us so much about how wasteful we are in the UK. So we decided to make some drastic changes to improve our local and global environment. With our new Ghanaian school friends, we hope to share another 50 years of  fun and education!”