Label lights and appliances to show which should be left on or turned off
5Taking action around the schoolKS1, KS2
Labelling Appliances and IT equipment
With your Energy Team, identify all IT equipment and appliances throughout the school. Use coloured sticker dots to mark up the on/off switches or power sockets supplying each appliance using a traffic light coding system:
Green indicates equipment which can be switched off by pupils when not in use (for example, PCs, projectors and interactive whiteboards).
Amber highlights equipment which should be switched off after checking with a member of staff that no-one is using it (for example, the main office computers or photocopier).
Red indicates equipment which should not be switched off (for example a server or a fridge).
Did you know? A single computer and monitor left on 24 hours a day will cost around £60 a year. Switching them off out of hours and enabling standby features could reduce this to less than £10 a year each and prolong the lifespan of equipment.
Labelling lights
Did you know? Making good use of daylight in a classroom can reduce lighting costs by 19%.
In many schools, classrooms can have excessive lighting installed. This is often arranged so that individual rows of light fittings can be switched separately. Follow the steps below to identify those rows which do not need to be switched on under normal daylight: 1. With your Energy Team, identify which rooms in the school have multiple light switches which allow rows or groups of fittings to be controlled independently. 2. Choose a day with average levels of daylight (i.e. overcast day/not too sunny) and carry out the following procedures in each room. 3. Switch off all the lights and then, starting furthest from the window, switch each row back on one at a time. Each time consider whether there is an adequate amount of light to work effectively at desk level. (Note: in some classrooms, it is lighting installed close and adjacent to an internal wall that is best left off). 4. When you feel there is an acceptable amount of light in the room, stop switching. 5. In consultation with the class teachers in these rooms, discuss your findings and get their agreement as to which rows of lights could normally be left switched off. If teachers are uncertain about progressing this, try switching off one set of lights nearer the window and see if the pupils notice in the next class. 6. Once identified, mark up the respective switches with red stickers in order to indicate to the staff and pupils that these marked switches are not to be used unless necessary (i.e. at night, on a very overcast day, or if a pupil needs more lights on). 7. You could also use green stickers for lights/switches that should be used as needed.