Climate Action Plan
Climate Action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
At Somerdale Educate Together Primary School, we believe that educators have a responsibility to help children understand the world around them and their role within it. Central to our ethos is a commitment to children’s rights, including the right to a safe, healthy environment, the right to be informed, and the right to have a voice on issues that affect their lives now and in the future.
Our Climate Action Plan is closely aligned with the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals provide a shared global framework for protecting human rights, addressing climate change, reducing inequality, and promoting environmental sustainability. Climate action is both a global responsibility and a rights-based issue, as environmental harm disproportionately affects children and future generations.
https://www.undp.org/sustainable-development-goals
Through our curriculum and our Ethical Education (Learn Together) curriculum, children explore these global goals and their links to climate change, sustainability, and social justice. This supports learners to develop a strong understanding of their rights and responsibilities, empowering them to become informed, active, and hopeful global citizens.
Our Climate Change Education Intent
At Somerdale Educate Together Primary School, we aim to ensure that all staff are equipped to provide children with the knowledge, skills, and values needed to understand climate change, take meaningful climate action, and actively protect the environment. We are committed to empowering our learners to become informed, hopeful, and responsible global citizens who understand that caring for the planet is closely connected to caring for people.
What Is Climate Change?
Climate change refers to long-term changes in global or regional climate patterns. In recent decades, these changes have been largely attributed to increased levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily caused by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
There are many factors that contribute to changes in the Earth’s climate, including:
- Greenhouse gases produced through human activity
- Deforestation, with more than half of the world’s land surface altered by human development
- The ozone layer trapping heat closer to the Earth’s surface
- Different types of air pollution, each affecting the atmosphere in different ways
Climate change is a significant global challenge. To ensure that children and young people respond with determination rather than despair, we must provide them with both knowledge and hope. Learners need access to accurate, knowledge-rich education about climate change, alongside opportunities to see themselves as agents of change through practical action, problem-solving, and positive environmental initiatives.
What Can We Do?
National and international guidance encourages all schools to develop a Sustainability Climate Action Plan that demonstrates how school communities can contribute to protecting the planet through direct climate action.
At Somerdale Educate Together Primary School, we recognise the important role we play in reducing our environmental footprint, working towards more sustainable practices, and supporting our children and wider school community to develop the knowledge and skills needed to thrive in a green and sustainable future. Our Climate Action Plan reflects our commitment to the SDGs and to upholding children’s rights through education, action, and care for the environment.
What Do We Already Do?
We are proud of the steps we already take to support climate action and sustainability, including:
- Embedding climate change and sustainability awareness throughout the curriculum from early years onwards
- Recycling paper and reducing waste across the school
- Reducing single-use plastics, including the use of reusable and metal cutlery at lunchtime
- Motion sensors to reduce energy use and our carbon footprint
- Promoting active travel
- Encouraging walking, cycling, and scooting through whole-school campaigns
- Planning outdoor learning opportunities to reduce energy use within the school building
- Offering gardening and outdoor clubs to promote care for nature and biodiversity
- Providing water conservation talks and environmental awareness sessions
- Working with external organisations to support climate and sustainability projects
- Taking part in community clean-up and environmental action initiatives including the Keynsham Wombles
Through these actions, and our ongoing commitment to improvement, Somerdale Educate Together Primary School continues to work towards a more sustainable, fair, and hopeful future for our children, our community, and our planet.
