The Year 7 Sustainability Symposium is the most recent event in a long tradition of partnership events with Queen Elizabeth’s School. Students were asked to research a sustainability topic beforehand, such as single-use plastics or fast fashion, then discuss the problem with their group, and try to design an informative and imaginative poster that would explain to other people why their issue is the most pressing on the local and global communities they belong to.
In the afternoon, the groups were split into two groups – one group of students worked with Mrs Haswell to improve their persuasive writing, while another group took part in a public speaking workshop with Mr Street and ONL and Sky Sports Presenter Olivia Wayne.
The groups then reconvened, shared what they had learned, and worked together to write persuasive letters calling for private action addressed to their local MPs, and to create impactful speeches that they delivered to Mrs Bingham and Mr Bonham-Carter (deputy head of QE) to try and encourage them to make changes within school to make them more sustainable.
There was a vibrant atmosphere throughout the day, with lots of exciting teamwork and shared ideas, and although there was some trepidation at first between the NLCS and QE students, these walls quickly broke down and all the participants collaborated amazingly to produce some really impactful resources.
