Despite the spate of school strikes a couple of years ago, demanding action on climate change, the school sector hasn’t received much attention as to how it is helping to tackle climate change. Perhaps everyone has just been too busy dealing with the more immediately urgent pandemic.

As a result, it was great news to come across this on the BBC website.

Hertfordshire County Council has granted planning permission for a 300-pupil primary school and nursery in Buntingford – the county’s first net-zero carbon school. The school’s windows will be triple-glazed, with solar panels installed to run electric vehicle charging points, while heating will be supplied by air-source heat pumps. Cllr Jeff Jones said he was “really pleased” that the “much-needed facility” would meet growing local demand, with around 1,500 new homes built in Buntingford since 2011.

However, I hope those triple-glazed windows can open since many years ago a Council near Heathrow built a new school with double glazing and sealed windows to reduce aircraft noise. The solar gain in the summer made the building a very uncomfortable place to work. Technology has no doubt ironed out that problem.

In 2019, I posted some suggestions for how schools could tackle the issue of climate change and there is a recent YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VQvGM55n08 discussing some of the strategies schools can adopt.

The simplest is for pupils, staff or governors to conduct an audit of energy use in their school. Straightforward and relatively cheap actions to take include ensuring all cooking is by electricity not gas and installing at least one EV charging point in the car park where the school has one.

Longer-term, we need to make playgrounds dual use. For most of the year they lie idle but could double as generators of renewable energy with a bit of ingenuity. Time for a venture capitalist to work with technologists and some MATs and perhaps a diocese or two to set up a pilot scheme?

Then there is the issue of biodiversity that has moved up the agenda. Do schools grow flowers either in pots or in their grounds? The Jubilee Scheme for tree planting is starting soon, and schools not directly involved can see if they have space to plant a tree. I well recall, and it shows my age, the ‘Plant a tree in 73; plants some more in 74’ campaign.

Do primary schools still grow cress. On a larger scale could the new school in Hertfordshire have a green roof or even green walls to absorb Carbon? I hope the school will also have a ‘grey water’ recovery scheme to harness rainwater installed.

The education sector does need to take climate change seriously not just in the classroom but also in the building and operation of schools, colleges and our universities. Should those manicured lawns be cut just a bit longer and less frequently than in the past?