Set up an Energy or Eco team to lead on energy efficiency at your school

Earith Primary School, Thursday, 06 November 2025
30 points 8 pupils Change-maker KS1, KS2, KS3, KS4

During the end of October, we selected, following formal interviews, an ECO-Council: Lauren (Year 6), Archie (Year 5), Luke (Year 6), Jasmina (Year 2), Robyn (Year 1), Elsie (Year 3), Emilia (Year 4) and Georgie (Year 5).

On 6th November we held our first meeting where we explored Energy Sparks website.  We then agreed for Mr Abbs to go away and do some further research before we met again.  We were awarded our new Eco-badges in celebratory assembly.

We have begun a Powerpoint which diarizes our efforts as a Council.  We intend to meet at least every 2 weeks, potentially on a Wednesday.

We have planned our first activity which will look at quite alarming data linked to the school's overuse of gas, which also has the potential to save us £3900.

See website, with Eco_council photo: https://www.earith.cambs.sch.uk/children/school-council 

Activity description

Some schools will already have an Eco-committee or similar which will take on this role. Other schools may choose to appoint a class to lead on energy efficiency. Decide which staff will support your team.

In most areas Energy Sparks can help support your Energy Team with visits or online sessions from trained professional educators, volunteer energy mentors or with STEM Ambassadors.  Please book a workshop here.

Educate your team about climate change and energy by carrying out some of the Energy Sparks Explorer activities. Make sure they are really knowledgeable about the importance of energy and climate change, at an appropriate level for their age. It is important that pupils have significant input into the decision-making process and take ownership of any energy saving plans made.

Set up the times and places for your team to meet, including when they will report to the school management team including governor representatives. Your team could split into several sub-groups focussing on different aspects of energy saving.

Your Energy Team will be responsible for reviewing the current energy use situation (using the Energy Sparks charts), developing an energy saving action plan, and monitoring, recording and reducing your energy use. They will particularly be responsible for communicating to your school community, conducting switch off campaigns and measuring how much energy is saved or wasted by pupil and staff behaviour. The group may decide to have a high profile energy efficiency campaign involving the whole school, possibly a power down/layer up day or switch-off fortnight. The team will also need to revisit energy issues on a regular basis to ensure that changes made are sustained over time.

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