Sustainability at Mount Stewart Schools

Intent

At Mount Stewart Schools, sustainability is central to empowering excellence and inspiring future leaders. Our intent is to develop pupils who understand their impact on the world, act responsibly and contribute positively to their local and global communities. As a federation, we embed sustainable thinking across education, leadership and daily practice to ensure our schools thrive while protecting the future.

Implementation

Sustainability is embedded across the curriculum through the Kapow scheme of learning, ensuring age‑appropriate progression across subjects and year groups. It is also a key priority within our Federation Improvement Plan under Personal Development and Wellbeing (Section 5.2), delivered through PSHE, EcoWarriors and the Our School, Our World programme. Pupils engage in practical, real‑life learning including outdoor experiences, leadership opportunities and sustainable routines such as reducing waste, saving energy and caring for green spaces.

Impact

Pupils develop a secure understanding of sustainability and confidence to take action. They demonstrate responsibility, leadership and teamwork, recognising that their choices make a difference. Children leave Mount Stewart as informed, caring and proactive individuals, equipped to make responsible choices and contribute to a fairer, more sustainable world.

Our Schools, Our World

The Mount Stewart Schools are proud to be part of the Our Schools, Our World programme, which supports schools in taking meaningful action towards becoming more sustainable and environmentally responsible.

Through this ongoing partnership, our school community continues to grow in confidence and understanding, empowering both staff and pupils to take positive action for the environment and contribute to a more sustainable future.

Theme: Waste and Consumption

Toy and book swap 

As part of our work on sustainability under the waste and consumption theme, we organised a Toy Swap and a Book Swap to promote reuse and reduce waste. Children were invited to bring in a toy or book they no longer used and exchange it for a preloved item brought in by another child.

These initiatives helped children develop an understanding of sustainability by encouraging them to reuse resources, reduce consumption, and recognise the value of extending the life cycle of everyday items. They also supported discussions around responsible choices, sharing, and reducing waste in an age‑appropriate and engaging way.

Both swaps provided practical, real‑life examples of sustainability in action and reinforced our commitment to embedding sustainable principles within the school community

Waste and Consumption Challenge

In line with our spring term theme of Waste and Consumption, we set pupils a whole‑school challenge to encourage creative reuse and responsible consumption. The quality of entries across all year groups was very high, with pupils demonstrating strong creativity and a growing understanding of sustainability.

Winning pupils visited Claremont High School, where they shared their projects with student sustainability leaders and viewed work from a similar project, supporting pupil voice, confidence and cross‑school collaboration.

Eco Refill Shop

Our Eco Refill Shop is a pupil led sustainability initiative, run once a month to support our school community in reducing plastic waste. Pupils take an active role in promoting sustainable choices by providing affordable refillable household products, encouraging families to reuse containers rather than purchase single use plastic bottles. To date, the project has helped save 106 plastic bottles, while also developing pupils’ leadership, responsibility and understanding of sustainability in real‑life contexts.