Children encourage adults to make the world a better place

Rather than letting someone else deal with the problem, Herringthorpe Junior School’s 90 year four pupils set about organising a community clean-up in their local park on Monday.

Year four teacher Amanda Lemons said the litter pick at Herringthorpe Valley Park was part of the school’s social innovation project, which has also included handing out free dog poo bags and planting flowers.

The three classes also came up with the idea of writing letters to residents in an attempt to persuade them to care about the locality and to help improve it.

Pupil Erin Wood wrote: “How would you feel if every step you took you were stepping on litter? The rubbish is invading animals’ homes causing devastating deaths. We need to persuade people to recycle our rubbish. If we don’t recycle every day we will be sleeping on litter.

"Littering is emotional. Innocent animals need your help. If every single animal died, how would you feel? Our selfish actions are like animals’ worst enemy. Our beautiful planet has nearly turned into a bin. People are born in this world and act like it’s no matter to them!”

Pupils warned of the shocking amount of plastic that is dumped and the dangers it poses to animals, and Eshaal Junied said: “Now that you know how devastating litter is for the environment, it is time to change your littering ways. Let’s work together to make a huge change in our local community. Littering is covering the world and is making the planet the most dirtiest, disgusting place in the whole wide universe.”

Olivia described the park as having a “tsunami of litter” and others told of the two million pieces of rubbish dropped in the UK on a daily basis, the 8.8 million tonnes of plastic discarded on beaches and the importance of recycling.

Mrs Lemons, who took part in the scheme alongside fellow teachers Ben Corbett and Anna Johnson, said: “The project began in February this year. We had taken our children on a local area walk to identify and observe different habitats. Whilst we were in the park, the children were shocked to see the amount of litter around on the floor, as well as bushes, hedgerows and around the woodland.

“This inspired the children to begin a project to have an impact in their local area, which also contributes to the ‘Global Goals’, something we are passionate about in our school. Another group of our children also identified that dog fouling was a big issue in the park and will be continuing the project in Valley Park to educate and provide free poo bags for dog walkers.

“The beginning of the projects then led us to form a relationship with the bowls team who have kindly allowed us access to their facilities when we have visited the park. We have also formed a relationship with the council who have been extremely supportive and provided us with the 90 litter pickers we needed to make the difference we made today. Over 30 bags of rubbish have been removed from the park by our children. A tremendous effort.

“They also provided our children with a plot of land adjacent to the car park for them to be able to plant wildflowers to improve the area even further. Our children will now continue to regularly visit the park in order to maintain our plot of land and hopefully continue to raise awareness over the litter being dropped and the dog fouling which has a huge impact on not only humans but also the animals we share our local area with.

“Since starting the project, our children have become passionate about becoming the change makers of tomorrow and becoming better citizens. So far, they have given the project 100 per cent effort and would like to continue this in the future.

“It has allowed them to become confident in their own ability to make positive changes in the world.”

Year four will be visiting the park later in the summer to evaluate the impact of its project and to plan its next steps, with the hope that future pupils will continue the good work.