Having successfully launched our first Green Award last year, Victoria Lambert reveals the complete range of categories for 2023 – and encourages schools to start entering now
Independent schools have never looked like a better choice: bursting with dynamic educational ideas and inspiring teachers, situated in well-maintained and sustainable campuses and buildings, offering an unimaginable range of extracurricular activities and sporting opportunities – and, most importantly, producing the sort of exam results and senior school and university admissions that parents rightly expect.
With so much to applaud, at School House, and in partnership with ISEB, we have decided to celebrate some of the less tangible benefits that independent schools are developing. We want to cheer on those schools which are getting it right in terms of pastoral care, mental health support, environmental awareness, and who are animal friendly, those with local partnerships, who have really gone beyond the standard charitable work and the most important one of all: happiness.
We are expecting the highest standard of entry and are confident we will be impressed. Let battle commence!
Schools can enter as many categories. Entries are now open and will close on June 22. CLICK HERE TO ENTER
The winners will be announced in our School House Magazine Autumn Winter Issue.
Champions will be presented with a commemorative School House Champion plaque. They will also be interviewed by Lisa Chuma, host of the Prepare Children for Success podcast, in association with School House.
Raising confident young people ready to live up to their potential requires attention. The best schools turn out well-rounded young people who are emotionally aware and resilient thanks to their excellent pastoral teams. We’re looking for recommendations for care that exceeds expectations – whether it’s a one-to-one tutoring system or a network of support which wraps around students to make sure they are thoroughly supported in mind, body and spirit.
Many parents’ number one concern is whether their child is feeling OK. The pressures of the modern world and social media in particular are leading to worrying increases in the amount of children reporting anxiety and depression. We’d like to hear what steps schools are taking to ensure that those students who are struggling they get the best possible support – and that it is fully integrated with teachers and parents.
Our Green Champion will be a school where environmental awareness is a verb, not a noun. With the astonishing range of eco-endeavours underway, schools will have to impress the judges with a really innovative plan, which puts sustainability and green concerns at the heart of the operation.
Whether home or abroad, students at many schools enjoy working in and supporting settings that take them from their comfort zone. That might be an orphanage in Cape Town or an elderly persons’ home in London. We’re interested in schools really exploring the concept of what it means to do good for others – and seeing the results it has on students.
Independent schools are rightly collaborating more often with local academies and primaries, sharing resources and even lessons to justify their place in the community. This trend is a powerful signifier of change in the sector and we know that many independents are justly proud of how much they have achieved already and their plans to widen their charitable purpose.
School House believes animals of all shapes and sizes belong in our schools; whether that is guinea pigs brought from home to keep boarders cheery, or ponies to be used in competition. From the headmaster’s dog who’s always available for cuddles, exotica like llamas and wallabies popping up unexpectedly, or farm animals which are there to be reared and sent to market, animals have so many roles to play at school. We’re looking for some special, unexpected stories of how schools are involving animals in the most interesting but, of course, educational way.
What do we all seek for our children? Happiness, joy, contentment – the intangibles on which a good life is built. A school full of happy children is a thriving home-from-home, where students reach their academic, sporting and social potential. Leavers head off with a clutch of exam certificates and that joie de vivre which once discovered can become a sustaining principle for life. So how do schools build happiness into every aspect of their daily life? We can’t wait to find out.
