Report of the Director of Education

This report outlines the work being undertaken by the Council to support the Education Sector in responding to the Climate Emergency declared by the City Council in July 2019, with a focus on decarbonisation. It also outlines the plans to develop this as a theme of Our Year 2022 in response to feedback from children and young people. This will enable children and young people to have their say and contribute to achieving the zero-carbon target for the city.

The Committee received a report of the Director of Education which outlined the work being undertaken by the Council to support the Education Sector in responding to the Climate Emergency declared by the Council in July 2019, with a focus on decarbonisation. It also outlined the plans to develop this as a theme of Our Year 2022 in response to feedback from children and young people. This would enable children and young people to have their say and contribute to achieving the zero carbon target for the city.

The main points and themes within the report included:

• Planned conference;
• Carbon Literacy Training;
• De-carbonisation;
• Partnership working with the Department for Education (DfE) and Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA);
• Young People’s Offer;
• Our Year;
• Green skills;
• Early Years settings; and
• Promoting active travel.

Manchester resident, Ruth Todhunter, addressed the Committee, telling them about her involvement in campaigning for clean air with other local mothers and the British Lung Foundation.  She informed Members about the School Streets Initiative, where a road outside a school had a temporary restriction on motorised traffic at school drop-off and pick-up times and the benefits of this for children and young people.  She encouraged the Council to work with schools and communities to identify where air quality could be improved to inform interventions and behaviour change.  She advised that funding to support School Streets should prioritise those schools most affected by poor air quality.  She reported that the British Lung Foundation was offering to meet with the Council to discuss how they could work together to monitor air pollution in the city.

Lee Ormsby and Kristian Cope from Our Lady’s RC High School delivered a presentation on their Climate Action Roadmap.

The main points and themes within the presentation included:

• Background information;
• Climate action activities by area;
• Student voice; and
• The steps of the roadmap from emerging to established to being a leading school on combating climate change, which could be a model for others and share its resources and learning.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• To welcome the presentation from Our Lady’s RC High School and the work they were doing and to ask whether they would be looking to move to using organic food;
• To what extent were other schools undertaking this kind of work, how would the actions taken by other schools be monitored and could Members be kept updated on this work;
• The need for safe walking and cycling routes to schools;
• Request from a Member for an Ardwick school to be included in the Street Schools initiative;
• How was the retrofitting of schools being addressed;
• To welcome the work that the Director of Education and Executive Member for Children’s Services had done in this area and to ask that sufficient officer capacity be made available to bring together best practice and progress this work in time for the planned conference;
• The importance of the new Climate Change Officers in each district engaging with schools and of ward-level and community engagement;
• The importance of a joined-up approach and sharing good practice between primary schools, secondary schools and colleges;
• The importance of involving children and young people in this work so that they felt they had agency, noting that this could help to reduce anxiety about climate change;
• What support was there from the Government and Council to support schools with carbon reduction; and
• The poverty faced by many families and that, when they were struggling to provide the basics of food and a warm home for their children, it was difficult to engage with issues such as where food was sourced from.

The Executive Member for Children’s Services advised Members that this was a very high priority for the Council and that they were looking to increase capacity to support this work.  He welcomed how much schools had been doing on this, despite the additional challenges they had faced due to the pandemic.  He reported that every ward had a climate action plan and that schools were central to that and he recommended that Ward Councillors ensure that the link with schools was explicit in their own ward action plans.  He advised that he would discuss with the Director of Education how schools’ work on climate change would be monitored and then discussions would take place with the Chair about the most appropriate way for the Committee to continue to scrutinise this. 

In response to the question about organic food, Kristian Cope advised that organic food was procured for use in food technology lessons but that for school meals it was difficult to buy sufficient volumes of organically produced food to feed nearly 1000 pupils, even before the cost was taken into account.

The Director of Education reported that individual schools were addressing climate change in different ways and that many did not have a single plan like Our Lady’s had so this did create challenges in monitoring it.  She advised that the Council would work with schools to share good practice and knowledge from schools which had done a lot of positive work on this to schools which had not started addressing this issue.  In response to a Member’s question, she advised that her service did already work with Neighbourhoods on some work relating to air quality but agreed that there was more to be done on this.  She reported that a lot of schools had wanted to take part in the School Streets initiative but that it had to be done in line with Highways legislation and that it was important to evaluate the impact from piloting the scheme in a few locations first.  She advised that, in terms of encouraging active travel, her service would focus on behaviour change, while also linking with Neighbourhoods on the local infrastructure.  She informed Members that a condition survey would be carried out on all school buildings that the local authority maintained and that this would enable the Council to better prioritise spending on buildings maintenance where it was most needed.

The Executive Member for the Environment advised that some of the reports which were going to the Environment and Climate Change Scrutiny Committee the following day were relevant to this discussion so she would ensure that these were shared with Members of this Committee.  She advised that the Council was looking at developing an improved criteria for how schools involved in the School Streets initiative were selected.  In response to a Member’s question, she confirmed that the location of planting of trees and hedges was co-ordinated and that this had massively increased.  She informed Members how Biffa was engaging with schools, including an offer of an educational programme on waste and recycling, and about the learning centre at the Longley Lane Household Waste and Recycling Centre and she advised that she would ensure this information was re-circulated to schools.

Elaine Morrison, Education Consultant, advised that the Council was sending regular communications to schools about any funding they became aware of to assist with this work and that addressing funding issues would be a focus of the conference.  She advised that working with the DfE on pilot projects was also bringing additional funding into the city.  She reported that officers were working with local businesses to see if they would be interested in supporting schools on this work.  She informed Members how links were being made with the Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise Sector (VCSE) to support this work.  She advised that officers were monitoring the geographical spread of schools involved in climate action work so that they could focus on any particular wards where there was a lower uptake.

Decision

To note the report.