At St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, pupils and staff have worked extremely hard over the past couple of years to change the way we work and live. We aware of climate change and global warming and all the harm this does to God’s world. The world we are so thankful to live in. We have been on a journey together, with pupils, staff, governors and our families to change our way of living in order to take care of God’s world even more.
We are the first school in the Diocese of Leeds to gain the Live Simply Award and one of only 6 schools in the entire country to have obtained this award
- Credits: Wetherby News
- Miss Milivojevic (our headteacher) with the Live Simply Award and some of our pupils.
What is the livesimply award?
It is awarded to communities who can show how they have been living:
• simply
• in solidarity with people in poverty
• sustainably with creation.
Some livesimply award communities have encouraged people to walk or cycle to church or school, install solar panels, start recycling schemes, join a climate change campaign, support Fairtrade stalls or donate to a local food bank. The award celebrates what you have already done and inspires you to do more. It helps your community to live, not just more simply, but also more fully.
What have we done to achieve the Live Simply Award?
- Energy Heroes Assembly to educate our children on the importance of caring for our planet.
- Our Energy Heroes attended a Climate Coalition in the aim to reduce carbon emissions to zero in West Yorkshire by 2038.
- Reducing wastage of water and resuing the water we would have otherwise wasted to water plants.
- We collect foods and monetary donations to help those less fortunate than us in our local community.
- Lots of our children frequently go litter picking around the school grounds.
- Our aim is that we don’t fill many bags because we use our bins!
- Raising money for Mary’s Meals which helps the poorest in our world
- Miss Milivojevic (our headteacher) with the Live Simply Award and some of our pupils.
- St Joseph’s Race for Life!
- We educate our children on road safety.
- This encourages children to think of other methods to travel to school to reduce the number of cars that are used.
- Caring for our community and the elderly within it.
The hard work does not stop there…
Just because we have now received our Live Simply Award, we are still striving to take care of God’s planet even more. We are now working together to save water and reduce wastage by reusing our water. We are still educating our children on the importance of playing our part due to climate change and global warming. There is still much to be done but we hope that our contribution to looking after God’s world does help and we hope that we can inspire others to do the same.
If you would like to work to achieving the LiveSimply award, see the guide below.