Youngsters at Grange Lane Infant Academy were invited to enter Ikea’s Eco School’s Project and teacher Mrs Lauren Heyes met with the school’s ‘Eco Warriors’ to discuss what the school as a whole could do to be more environmentally friendly.
She said: “As it was around the time of the COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference there was a lot of talk about how vehicles pollute the climate.
“After a long discussion and lots of ideas being put forward it was decided that a bike/scooter shelter would help encourage families to leave the car behind and opt to bike, scoot or walk to school.”
The group worked together and put a presentation forward to Ikea after which they discovered they had been shortlisted to go through to the Dragon’s Den round.
Of all the entries only eight schools were chosen to go in front of the panel of judges.
Academy principal Louise Chappell said: “We are very proud of our Eco Warriors for their hard work and thank Ikea for the amazing opportunity.”
On the day of the Dragon’s Den round the children did such a good job at presenting their idea that Ikea asked to go into school and see it all again in person.
A panel of four judges visited and were taken for a walk around the school grounds to show them where the bike/scooter shelter would go and how the location of it would suit all the children who attend Grange Lane.
Following the visit, Ikea got back in touch and asked to visit once again to see the children in assembly. Unfortunately, due to Coronavirus it had to be a scaled down assembly
Michael Axe, charity/community co-worker from Ikea, said: “I think all schools are trying their best to keep numbers of covid cases down to a minimum. In my eyes everyone that works at a school are saints, keep up the good work.”
Earllier this week Ikea visited once again and met the whole of Year One and the Eco Warriors when they announced the academy had won the competition.
Science co-ordinator Mrs Heyes said: “We are absolutely thrilled to announce we won. We have been given £2,000 to spend on our new bike/scooter shelters and can’t wait for them to be here. We hope to see lots of families helping to save the environment by biking, scooting and waking to school.
”The children rose to the challenge and delivered an amazing presentation which impressed the judges so much that the children were announced winners. They
are now excitedly awaiting the bike shelters."
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2. Discussions
The youngsters check out where the new shelters should be positioned Photo: Submitted
3. Explaining all
Representatives from Ikea hear all about the academy's plans Photo: Submitted
