Creative Low-carb Learning

Creative, Low-carb Learning Communities (Telford)
This project began as an after-school enterprise club founded by a Y11 school prefect at a technology specialist secondary school. It brought together a dozen Y9 students from the Duke of Edinburgh cohort to explore concepts of their community and how they might engage it through different forms of communication. They were encouraged to set up small projects, which were accredited through ASDAN's Certificate of Personal Effectiveness.

The students ran an event for business mentors to discuss how the school and local enterprises could work better together, and persuaded the borough mayor and his wife to join them, taking photos for, and being interviewed by, the evening paper. They then raised £10k in grants and sponsorship for their summer expedition.

When they later watched a film about global warming, the students reported feelings of helplessness. So they researched and made a short documentary of their own to show primary pupils how they can make a difference. One group of students started to set up a small enterprise to recycle old clothes, while another designed a large mural at the front of the school. A third group coordinated the eco-schools award, working with the local primary feeder schools.

An important outcome was a greater sense of purpose that united many of the teachers and revealed a plethora of existing projects already underway that related to the environment and social justice. Meanwhile, a group of under-achieving Y10s began to explore issues around recycling. They began working with the local allotments society to improve the school's garden, through which they discovered that they were sitting on a small nature reserve. They discovered that a teacher was working in the garden on weekends with local young offenders. Now the school has begun to explore how the whole community can collaborate more closely to promote local biodiversity, and the supporting role that can be played by technology.