Mayor awards London's greenest primary schools

Mayor of London Ken Livingstone today (Tuesday 4th July 2006) presented primary schools from across London with cash prizes, as part of the London Schools Environment Awards.

Thames Water supported the London School Environment Awards in line with the company's commitment to the schools awards.  The children will learn about litter, water, waste and recycling, energy, transport and biodiversity.

Steve Backshall the adventurer & Natural History presenter of Children’s BBC TV’s Really Wild Show and Sky One’s Inside the King Cobra hosted the awards ceremony .

Bzents entertainment-featuring Bozo and Zizi the clowns-entertained the winners while promoting an environmental message. Children also got the chance to interact with animals from Spitalfields City Farm.

Over 240000 children from 701 primary schools registered for the scheme this year. A distinction award of £2000 and a highly commended award of £1000 were presented to two schools in each of the participating London boroughs.

The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said: ‘Water is a precious resource that everyone has a responsibility to conserve so I’m pleased to see that schools which have been taking part in the London Schools Environment awards have learnt more about water conservation this year.  It is crucial that we pay more attention to our environment and how we manage natural resources and there is no better way to learn than by hands-on projects. I really want to commend the hard work of the children and teachers who have got involved with the London Schools Environment Awards this year.’

‘Climate change has now become a problem we cannot ignore. A recent MORI poll found that 9 out of 10 of Londoners believe climate change is a threat to the world and will be for future generations unless we act now.  Children are the most likely to be affected by the mistakes we are making now.  We have to address the impact our lifestyles have on the environment and make changes. These awards are helping children to learn about looking after the environment, to tell their parents how they can live a cleaner and greener lifestyle and crucially helping the next generation of Londoners to live a healthier lifestyle as they grow up.’

Steve Backshall said: ‘I am really excited to be part of the London Schools Environment Awards this year as I have been very impressed with the variety of projects that children from across London have been doing to improve the environment and conserve water.  Of all the groups that are concerned about the environment, I find children are the most enthusiastic.  I hope the habits they learn about protecting the environment and their enthusiasm lasts throughout their lifetime’.

The London Schools Environment Awards were set up by the Capital Standards Programme and are organised by the Mayor of London. Thames Water is the principal sponsor of the awards this year, which are also supported by Cleanaway and EDF Energy. The awards have been developed to foster children’s sense of responsibility for their environment and the categories which the schools focused on were - litter, waste and recycling, energy, transport and biodiversity. The children learned about the need to reduce, re-use and recycle waste and to save energy at home and at school. They were taught about biodiversity and learnt about a variety of plants, animals and habitats.

To assist the children’s learning about the environment, volunteers from Thames Water went into schools across London during their volunteer week and helped children with their projects. 

Schools signed up to the scheme did a variety of projects to learn about the environment. In one school, children created a bin specifically for their waste fruit, which was used for compost in the school garden. Another school monitored their rubbish to make sure that nothing that could be recycled was being sent to landfill. Another designed posters for rooms reminding children and teachers to save energy and switch off lights. Other schools created nature gardens and vegetable patches, one school started planting woodland in their nature garden.

Thirty of the participating schools raised also £33,450 for the WaterAid Scheme, which supports water and sanitation projects in some of the world's poorest countries.

Ends

Press release issued: July 4 2006