A community of educators empowering students to take climate action

Schools Climate Action Planner

Welcome to the Schools Climate Action Planner!

Transform Our World and its partners have developed this free, easy-to-use digital tool to enable teachers, students and staff to identify actions they can take to reduce their school's environmental impact. After answering some yes or no questions, the tool will show you the personalised actions that would have the greatest impact at your school by pointing to resources, initiatives and programmes from various organisations.

The tool is designed to help your school:

  • Reduce your school's carbon footprint
  • Help everyone in the school community understand the issues surrounding the climate crisis and what they can do to take action
  • Build on wellbeing and personal development in the actions you take

How does it work?

Learn what your school can do to take climate action in a few simple steps!

 

  • First, answer a few questions about your school. This helps the tool tailor the suggested actions to best suit your school’s situation. These are simple questions that you should be able to answer without much support.
  • Select what actions you would like to do first. You will be presented with a schools climate action plan that also links to helpful resources, programmes, organisations and case studies to help you to implement your recommended actions.

 

 

Over to you! You can print out or save your action plan to remind you of the actions or share with colleagues.

 

 

Using the action planner

Localised Schools Climate Action Planner

Are you a local authority or an individual who has oversight over multiple schools in a locality? We offer a localised version of the Schools Climate Action Planner that you can adapt to reflect the local actions that schools can take within a geographical area. To find out more about how a localised version of the planner works, see this document, or contact [email protected].

To use the action planner, please make sure you are signed in to the Transform Our World Site.

About your school
Climate Action Survey
Select Actions
Your Climate Action Plan
Climate Action Survey

Every school is different and at different stages of their journey in tackling the climate crisis. Therefore, every school faces their own unique set of challenges. By answering the following questions as best as you can, you will help us to identify the actions that work best for your school.

 

Please answer ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. You will be able to change your answers at any point.

Question
Yes/No
Additional Information
Are you a Primary School?

If you are a middle school or cover both primary and secondary ages please select "yes". 

If you are a middle school or cover both primary and secondary ages please select "yes". 

Are you a Secondary School?

If you are a middle school or cover both primary and secondary ages please select "yes". 

If you are a middle school or cover both primary and secondary ages please select "yes". 

Do you have a pot of money to improve the sustainability of your school?

This doesn't have to be a huge amount of money, it just helps us prioritise actions that have little or no cost. 

This doesn't have to be a huge amount of money, it just helps us prioritise actions that have little or no cost. 

Is your school boiler less than 10 years old?

This might be a question for your school site manager. 

This might be a question for your school site manager. 

Was your school building built after 2018?

The standard of energy efficiency is higher in more modern buildings.

The standard of energy efficiency is higher in more modern buildings.

Does your school have access to outdoor space/greenery?

A green space does not already need to be in place.

A green space does not already need to be in place.

Have you run lessons on the topic of climate change before?

This is best to think of in the context of the students you will be working through this action plan with.

This is best to think of in the context of the students you will be working through this action plan with.

Do the majority of your students and staff bring in their own lunch?

This can be an estimate. 

This can be an estimate. 

Is your school located in an area with high levels of air pollution?

You can check local levels of air pollution using Defra's forecast map.

You can check local levels of air pollution using Defra's forecast map.

Does your school have a swimming pool onsite?

Please note: we ask this question as this can have a big impact on a school's water usage.  

Please note: we ask this question as this can have a big impact on a school's water usage.  

Is your school based in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority area?

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is made up of the ten Greater Manchester councils and Mayor. You can find out which councils are included here.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) is made up of the ten Greater Manchester councils and Mayor. You can find out which councils are included here.

Do more than 50% of your staff and students walk to school?

This can be an estimate.

This can be an estimate.

Does your school have recycling bins in each classroom?

This is when a separate bin is provided in the classroom for recyclable waste e.g. paper, plastic.

This is when a separate bin is provided in the classroom for recyclable waste e.g. paper, plastic.

Select Actions

Now it's time to build your climate action plan. We suggest you pick up to six of the recommended actions to get going. Once you have completed them, you can return to the tool to add more to your action plan.

 

Your recommended actions have been selected based on their relevance to your school (in response to your answers in the survey above) and are ranked by their effectiveness, based on their impact on reducing your schools carbon footprint, cost, effort and co-benefits such as community engagement and educational value. If you are after more detail, each action displays symbols that represent the predicted effort, cost and overall impact to help you decide if this action is right for your school.

 

The actions that first appear at the top of each pathway are those we recommend your school starts with and we suggest you select at least one from each pathway. You can choose these actions to implement by clicking 'Add to action plan'. Or if you would rather select a different action in the pathway simply pick another one or select 'We already do this' or 'Not applicable' .

 

You can discover more about each action, and the important resources to help you implement your actions, by selecting 'Read more'. There will then be links to relevant toolkits, guidance and materials to help you do each action, as well as case studies from other schools to provide inspiration. For actions funded by GMCA, you will also see a short description of what area of their 5-Year Environment Plan has been covered by this action.

Your School's Climate Action Plan

Congratulations, you have now created your school climate action plan! You can download a PDF copy of your action plan, to share with others for example with your senior management team or governing body.

 

As you work through the actions come back to the tool to update your progress. You can ‘Tick’ actions that you have completed (these will then move to the bottom of the table), ‘Share’ an update on how you are implementing each action, and ‘Delete’ an action from your action plan that you no longer intend to implement. Actions that you have marked as ‘We already do this’ will be listed below the table.

 

If you have completed any climate related actions already at your school that are not listed here, which you think would be a great addition to this tool, please get in touch. We will take this into consideration when adding new actions in future. 

 

If you have any questions, please get in contact with us at [email protected]

Add your own actions Complete the sections below
Action Title
Impact:
Cost:
£££
Effort:
Pathway:
CommunityCurriculumCampusCulture
Details
More Info
Action Saved!
Action will now appear in the actions listed above.
Add Own Action
Your Climate Action Progress

Well done! The progress chart below shows your school's progress, represented by the circle icon.

PROGRESS
TARGET
(BASED ON CURRENT
SELECTED ACTIONS)
KEY

Progress Bar

This represents your progress made, including actions you already do and those you've completed.

Actions Yet To Complete

This represents the actions you have selected that you have not yet completed within your action plan.

Further Actions

This represents further actions you can go back and select once you've completed your selected actions!

You can always select more actions to make even more progress by revisiting above! 

 

And let us know how you're getting on! Share updates on your progress so that we can share them with other Transform Our World schools.

Greater Manchester Combined Authority contributed towards the funding of the Schools Climate Action Planner tool.

No Translation

Contact

 

If you would like to know more about Transform Our World, or any of our programmes, please get in touch.

 

Please detail your enquiry here

Thank you for submitting your enquiry! We are currently receiving a large number of enquiries and are trying our best to get back to people as soon as possible. In the meantime, you might find one of the following links helpful: 

 

Transform Our World Youth Summit

Access catch up content from the Transform Our World Youth Summit

 

As a Transform Our World user, you can access the content from the Transform Our World Youth Summit and catch up on the content across three themed days, looking at individual actions we can do, people in power we can influence and the importance of living our true values.  

 

Follow the links below and check out the timestamp guide to navigate the content.

 

 

Catch up on Action Day

 

Catch up on Power Day

 

Catch up on Values Day

 

General Transform Our World 
  • Are you a teacher? Learn about how to use the website here
  • Looking for teaching resources? You can find our collection of highly-rated resources here
  • Looking for something more long-term? Check out our featured programmes here
  • Want to see what other schools have been up to? Have a read of some case studies here
  • Alternatively, take a look at our FAQs and About pages as they might help to answer your question(s). 

 

All the best,  


The Transform Our World team

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