SustFest22 has free events for school staff, free school assemblies for teachers to use and activities at schools across the district. Thousands of students in St Albans, Harpenden and the villages are going to be getting eco-logical for this year’s Sustainability Festival.
SustFest22 for your students and young people
Sign up to join in with SustFest22 Schools’ Week
23rd – 27th May 2022.
Get your school or youth group involved by registering with us an activity you will do – with your eco group or your whole school/youth group. You can register your participation right up the the beginning of the schools’ week. At the end of the festival, your school will get a free certificate celebrating its participation.
See our Supporters page for a list of the district schools that have signed up so far.
A graphic showing a selection of schools’ and other groups’ private SustFest22 activities can be seen here:
Use our free Sustainability Festival school assemblies
Our free, dedicated Sustainability Festival school assemblies have options for EYFS/Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 as well as Secondary school students.
Free Events for St Albans District School Staff
Sustainable Schools Networking Event on Zoom
Monday 23rd May, 4.30 – 5.45pm
Share and discover! Join the Sustainable Schools volunteers and local school staff for ideas and inspiration about carbon footprint reduction in schools and teaching sustainability & eco-awareness. We will be joined by a speaker from the Hertfordshire County Council Active and Safer Travel team to discuss their ‘Modeshift Stars’ scheme to support sustainable travel to school.
Register here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
The Wilder Schools Network
Tuesday 24th May, 4.15 – 5.45pm at Roundwood Primary, Harpenden
Join Heidi Carruthers from Wilder St Albans and fellow teachers to share ideas and best practice on the wilding of school grounds and outdoor learning.
E-mail Heidi to book your place.
Help spread the word about SustFest22!
You can download graphics and the poster from our Spread the Word page.
About SustFest
The Sustainability Festival (SustFest) is an annual 2 week festival of sustainability events across St Albans, Harpenden and the villages. Each year, over 30 schools, scouting and guiding groups take part, ranging from practical activities, such as tree planting or restoring school ponds, to assemblies and pupil conferences, for example about reducing plastic.
About the Sustainable Schools Group
SustFest Schools’ Week is particularly supported by the Sustainable St Albans Schools Group – a group of volunteers who help schools become more sustainable. Visit our Sustainable Schools webpages for teaching resources, action ideas and to sign up to our newsletter. We’ll help you become a greener St Albans District school!
We hold termly Networking Events for Teachers, Senior Leadership, PTAs and School Governors of St Albans District schools. Register here for our SustFest22 schools networking on zoom.
Ideas for SustFest Schools/Youth Activities
A whole week or a few young people on one activity – it’s up to you how much you do for SustFest but we’d love to have you on board! Register here so we know you’re joining in.
Hold an enrichment day/week around….
- appreciating and protecting nature
- reduce / reuse / recycle
- climate change
Debate and Discuss
- get the students to take the lead – student conferences, debates, strategy meetings and assemblies are all appropriate for older students to run
Grow/Eat Food
- get parents to come in and dig over the veg beds
- plant seeds in newspaper pots
- take a group of children to help at Incredible Edible St Albans community food growing plots.
- build bug hotels
- plant a tree
- explore vegan cookery
- learn about sustainable fish
Energy
- monitor lights and interactive whiteboards to see if they are switched off
- launch a fundraising campaign for solar panels on your roof
- mount an anti-idling campaign aimed at parents for drop-off and pick-up
Nature
- explore a local park or nature area and find nature on your doorstep
- go on a bug hunt
- make pictures out of sticks and leaves
- leaf-rubbing
- pond-dipping
- bird-watching
Waste
- have a “waste free lunch” challenge and try to cut food waste for the week
- do a litter pick
- build a greenhouse out of plastic bottles
- mount a campaign to use both sides of paper in school
- read Duffy the Sea Turtle or Hunter’s Icy Adventrure and other books in the series to learn about plastics and marine life
Be inspired by last year’s SustFest21
Schools Week for SustFest21 was 24th May to 28th May 2021. Every school in St Albans District was invited to get involved.
Click here to see the Schools pages of the SustFest21 programme with many of the schools involved listed along side the activity they ran.
Click here to see photos of activities in SustFest21 – the Schools/Youth section
Sustainability Festival 2022 