Five schools in Waltham Forest have teamed up to help children explore ways they can improve the environment in their communities and the wider world.

Pupils from Sybourn, Barn Croft, South Grove and Edinburgh Primary Schools have joined forces with Kelmscott Secondary School to launch the Green Kids and Communities programme.

Last week, an ice-breaker activity was held at Kelmscott where children learned about some of the challenges the world is facing such as biodiversity loss and plastic in the oceans.

Working in groups, the youngsters collaborated on ideas for action plans their schools could use to become greener.

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Students from Kelmscott are working with primary school pupils on the project. Photo: Dione Sarantinou

Sam Jones, deputy headteacher at Kelmscott School, said: “It was very special to see so many young people working cross phase on such a worthwhile project. “The students involved were highly engaged and are very much looking forward to transforming their environmental action plans into reality.”

The programme is part of the Green Schools Project which was awarded £8,750 through the Big Lottery Fund’s Awards For All to work with schools.

The schools will each receive up to £1,000 as part of the funding to kick-start their projects and each of them will get support from a university student volunteer.

The aim is to improve cohesion across the community and there will be a celebration event at the end of the summer term for each school to share their successes.

Henry Greenwood, founder of the Green Schools Project, said: “I visited each school to give an assembly which explained climate change and the effect that humans are having on the natural environment, before exploring the actions that they can take to tackle this big global issue.

“The reaction was really positive, and the children are very keen to get involved with some projects such as food growing, energy saving and tackling air pollution by reducing car use.”