The European Sustainable Schools Awards: Recognising Excellence, Diversity and Creativity in the Green Transition

<< Background >>We applied for this project to support the green transition of European schools, by recognising the existing creative work being done across the European education sector. We also created an environment for teachers and students to network, exchange practices and share creative solutions to promote sustainability across the curriculum and in the school environment more generally. We promoted future-oriented curricula to empower students to lead change, in areas such as, energy use and waste reduction, biodiversity promotion and encouraging others to make sustainable choices in food and transport. The project was aligned with EU strategy and priorities,centred around; 1. sustainability, from climate goals to circularity, zero pollution, and biodiversity (we aimed make schools places of environmental change, but also sustainable environments)2. aesthetics, quality of experience and style beyond functionality (we want to leverage on creativity to promote a qualitative change)3. inclusion, from valuing diversity to securing accessibility and affordability (we want to make sure that sustainability is accessible to everybody and diversity is a resource to be valorised)<< Objectives >>The goal of the project was to promote sustainable practices in European schools through recognition of good practices and creative solutions in schools across the EU. We achieved this by:- Fostering systemic and organisational change of European schools to become more sustainable;- Recognising and rewarding creative-based and future-oriented curricula that educate students on the changes needed for a successful green transition;- Creating a European network of schools to facilitate the exchange of good practices. For example, one teacher told us “I will try to find a partner from the group to submit a project and continue this journey together”. << Implementation >>Firstly, we created an evidence-based rubric for schools to apply for the awards. This was designed to be easy to use, but required enough evidence from the schools for us to make well-informed decisions about who to offer the awards to. The rubric focussed on investigating how schools promoted sustainable practices across the school environment, education curricula and social inclusion. This ensured a holistic application from each school. Alongside the awards process, we delivered online sessions to applicants for them to learn a new activity they could try in their school to promote sustainability. This offered less experienced schools a chance to gain new skills. The main activity of the project was the European Sustainable Schools Awards in Skopje, where students and teachers from across the EU had an opportunity to learn from each other. This was very successful and we received positive feedback from participants, for example: “I saw a lot of different projects about art and sustainability that I think we can do in our school”. << Results >>12 schools who participated in the summit gained knowledge about integrating sustainability and green practices across their schools.This was clear from their feedback:“I learned useful activities I can use in my school, like making leftover recipe books, building insect hotels, leading themed photography contests to raise awareness about climate change”. Min. 40 teachers have stronger competencies to promote education for sustainable development in their curriculum and connect it with local environmental challenges:“I learned how to improve coexistence with existing environmental projects in my community”.Min. 40 school staff have stronger knowledge about green practices for green transition of European schools:“I got the idea to do eco-audits next year to transform our building into a more sustainable place”. Min. 200 students have stronger knowledge about environmental issues, their role as citizens and EU priorities:“What inspired me the most was seeing how students from different countries work together and share ideas to make their schools more sustainable.”After the summit,we created the Sustainable Schools Handbook to guide teachers on promoting sustainability in the schools. It's available on SALTO and ESSA web-site.