Laudato Si’ Committee 2022-2023
The Laudato Si’ Committee work together to make St Mary’s (and the world!) a greener place. We are named after Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ (praise be) initiative that calls for action on the greatest threats facing the human family today – climate change, growing global inequality and the destruction of biodiversity.
Committee Criteria
- Pupils are nominated by their peers to be on the committee. This includes all KS1 and KS2 year groups in the school.
- Pupils are given the opportunity to invite along non-teaching staff to join their meetings to help them with a particular topic they have chosen to work on. There is a representation from the parents or governing body on your Eco-Committee.
- The committee meets at least once every half term.
- Pupils share responsibility with adults for running meetings and keeping a record of the meetings.
- Minutes are displayed on our Laudato Si’ Board.
- Reports of your Laudato Si’ meetings are made available to the Board of Governors.
- Pupil representatives ensure that there is communication to and from the Laudato Si’ Committee to the rest of the school.
Key Skills of the Members
Our committee need to work well together. In their role as a member of the team, they need to have some key skills and values:
- Teamwork
- Leadership
- Listening
- Respect
- Facilitation
- Debating
- Empathy
- Co-operation
- Negotiation
- Delegation
- Note-taking
- Democracy
Summer Term 2022 Initiatives
We are very pleased to announce that our proposal to plant trees along the perimeter fence in KS2 was successful.50+ laurel trees were planted in the junior playground as well as by the school reception entrance, making St Mary’s a greener and, we believe, even friendlier place. Apart from improving our general wellbeing, the trees also trap particulates from car exhausts along the road.
Spearheaded by Alice, members of the committee gave each class in the school a few sunflower seeds. We are now holding a competition to see which class can grow the tallest one! As we grow our flowers, we think of the people in the Ukraine. Did you know the sunflower is their national flower?
Spring Term 2022 Initiatives
The committee have been delivering composting lessons in EYFS, teaching the children in Nursery and Reception about growth and decay. It was fun to be the teacher and the classes we taught were very interested in what we had to share.
We held a successful litter pick around the school grounds. It was wonderful to collaborate with children from the Wellbeing Committee and together we collected no fewer than 4 bags of rubbish!