At Carnforth Community Primary School children are at the heart of our curriculum. We are committed to providing a curriculum which is broad and balanced, and provides our pupils with opportunities to gain essential knowledge, skills and understanding. We believe that every child should have the opportunity to develop and build their self-esteem, self-confidence and a love for learning. We encourage our children to have high aspirations and strive for the best - to "Believe and Achieve". We want our children to be responsible and begin to understand how they learn most effectively by the time they leave us.

Additional information can be found by following the link to our policies page here.

To find out more about each class, visit our Class Pages.

SUSTAINABILITY &

CLIMATE ACTION

Our Climate Change Education Intent:

To ensure that all staff are equipped to give our children the knowledge and tools to understand climate change, take climate action and proactively protect the environment.

What is Climate Change?

The dictionary definition is: A change in global or regional acclimate patterns, in particular a change apparent from mod to late 20th Century onwards and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.

There are many factors that can make the Earth warmer and colder including:

• greenhouse gases caused by human activity,

• deforestation, where more than half of the world’s surface has been ploughed and paved,

• ozone layer trapping heat closer to the Earth’s surface

• different types of air pollution which have different effects on the atmosphere.

The challenge of climate change is formidable. For children and young people to meet it with determination, and not with despair, we must offer them not just truth, but also hope. Learners need to know the truth about climate change – through knowledge-rich education. They must also be given the hope that they can be agents of change, through hands-on activity and, as they progress, through guidance and programmes allowing them to pursue a green career pathway in their chosen field (DFE 2023).

What can we do?

The DFE has called on all education sectors to create a sustainability climate action plan to show how we, as a school community, can support national and international initiatives which are aimed at protecting the world through direct climate action. At Carnforth Community, we have an important role to play in this, particularly reducing our environmental footprint to work towards net zero and giving all our children, young people and adults the knowledge and skills to thrive in the green economy and to help restore nature.

What do we already do?

• Curriculum reflects climate & sustainability awareness and is embedded from KS1
• Recycle paper
• Took part in Carnforth’s Big Green weekend organised by the local council 2024
• Community Litter pick with Carnforth Rotary Club 2024
• Y5&6 children organised a Big Litter-pick around the local community – community involvement (parents, rotary, businesses, councillors) 2025
• Reduced use of plastic at lunch time – metal cutlery etc
• Motion sensors installed for automatic light switch off to reduce carbon footprint
• Summer term ‘WOW’ campaign (walk, bike, scooter, park and walk) to reduce carbon footprint
• Walk-to-School week
• Reduce carbon footprint in building through planning outdoor lessons
• Climate and sustainability projects with external agency through Global Links and Morecambe Bay Partnership
• Yearly Water Conservation talks for KS2
• Summer Term gardening club

During their Sustainability topic, Y5&6 learned about countries and cities in the world leading on sustainability, such as Singapore and Denmark. At the end of the topic, they worked in groups to show off what they had learnt by designing and making their own sustainable city using recyclable materials. Children included green and blue spaces, renewable energy sources and car free zones.