We have a pretty serious green agenda at school – primaries are better are this than secondaries apparently – and it struck me the other day how good it is for linking with other lessons.

Maths:  By turning off lights and technology, and keeping a chart we have saved the school £45 a week in energy bills.

Science: We started a garden and put the kids in charge of growing their own vegetables, which we now use in the school canteen; saving the school around £30 a week in food costs, and reducing our food miles and carbon footprint.

English and Art: The kids have been making posters about what we’re doing, and we’re now running an award for the best one.

Drama: We put on a play about being eco friendly, at the school fete, and raised enough money to buy a solar panel for the school. We’re going to use it to power one of our temporary classrooms.

It’s simple things, but the results have been amazing and I’ve been so inspired by the enthusiasm of the children. It’s a good sign if they are the generation of the future, as they might care more about our planet than we do.

Redtape High School has been all about the ‘green agenda’ for a couple of years now, and I’m quite frankly sick of it. Well, i’m not sick of it, but I object heavily to having to take my pupils out of their lesson this morning to clear up the ‘recycling’ which has blown all over the school grounds because of this hideous weather. Ordinarily I wouldn’t mind the excuse to enjoy a quick cigarette and coffee while watching my pupils trawl about in the wind picking up litter, it’s like some sort of mini community service (which I reckon is a great idea) but they’ve got mock exams coming up and we were finally making some progress with romantic poetry – a feat of genius when dealing with a load of oversexed teenagers who couldn’t usually care less about what Keats thought about nightingales or Grecian urns.