Sustainability
At the David Ross Education Trust, we are committed to building a greener, more sustainable future for our students, staff and communities. Every academy plays a part in reducing our environmental impact and inspiring young people to take positive action for the planet. On this page, you’ll find our school’s Climate Action Plan along with updates on projects and activities that showcase how we are putting sustainability into practice.
Academy Climate Action Plan
skegness grammar climate action plan.pdf
Recycling
Recycling:
- Recycling is important as it helps us sustain our planet for future generations to come.
- Reusing materials that can be recycled prevents more waste going to landfill or incineration, which generates harmful greenhouse gases!
- Many recyclable materials, like plastic bottles cause harm for wildlife.
- Turtles swallow straws and this can cause them to suffocate or starve to death.
- Plastics that contain chemicals can leech into soil/water, causing chemicals to contaminate our soil, damaging our food supply
SGS has dedicated recycling units throughout various areas of the school site for plastics, food waste and paper/card which are clearly labelled. The academy also partners with local authorities and organisations to recycle harder-to-recycle items like batteries, mobile phones, printer cartridges and scrap metal. We teach our students the importance of their efforts through the curriculum, assemblies and lessons they receive.
Waste Separation and Recycling unit:
- Thankyou to the Eco-club who have pioneered our new recycling bin in the canteen
- New signs will be going onto the bins to identify what you can put in each bin
- This is hugely important, as contaminated recycling CANNOT go to the recycling plant. It will go straight to landfill
- It is vitally important that we get this right.
/i/video/Reducing_Single_Use_Plastic.mp4
Pre-loved Uniforms
We are delighted to be partnering with Winnies Community Lounge on Winthorpe Road (just off Roman Bank). They are open Monday to Thursday, 10:00–15:00.
All donated uniform from us is sent directly to Winnies, where they offer an incredible service: every clothing item is completely free of charge. Winnies Community Lounge is part of the registered charity Winthorpe Community Partnership.
The shop holds a stock of SGS uniform and always welcomes donations of our uniform as well as any other school wear, including coats and shoes.
All uniform items are given out FREE to families.
Contact: Jodi - jodibrad80@hotmail.com. Tel: 07738 997000.
Projects and Activities
Tesco Community Grant - Recycling Waste Reduction Station
We are delighted to share some fantastic news! Our application to the Tesco Community Grants Programme has been successful, and our project will now be put forward to a customer vote in local Tesco stores using the blue voting counters.
Voting is open now and will run until the end of July 2026. You can vote for us in the Skegness Superstore, Ingoldmells Queensway Express, and Burgh Old Road Skegness Express.
If we are successful, the funding will be used to develop a Recycling and Waste Reduction Station, helping our pupils learn about sustainability and make a positive impact on the environment.
We would really appreciate your support. Every vote counts, so please remember to pop your blue token into the voting box for our school whenever you shop at Tesco.
Thank you for helping us make a difference!
Past Activities
Our school recently buzzed with environmental spirit as we celebrated Earth Day 2026 under the theme "Our Power, Our Planet." The day was a vibrant sea of greens, blues, and browns, with Sixth Formers leading a successful non-uniform day and the rest of the school showing their support in Earth-coloured shirts and jumpers. This colourful display of solidarity followed a truly inspiring assembly led by our dedicated Eco Club students, whose passion for the planet set the perfect tone for the event.
Thanks to the incredible generosity of our students and staff, we are thrilled to announce that nearly £150 was raised! These funds are already earmarked for new sustainable schemes within the school, ensuring that our celebration leads to lasting, "green" change on our own campus. A huge thank you goes out to everyone who participated and to the Eco Club for reminding us all of the power we hold to protect our planet
Green Day
On Thursday 23rd April, 2026 Skegness Grammar School hosted their first ever Green Day, a whole day of environmental investigations and actions. The morning saw one group of students departing for Gunby Hall, a national trust estate locally for a guided walk with the Estate Ranger, who showed how the Estate is managing sustainability and encouraging biodiversity, the head gardener also spent time with the students looking at the trees and plants and how these support insects and small mammals.
With remaining students taking part in a carousel of environmental tasks including: Working with the wonderful Elli from Another Way to explore issues surrounding climate change and climate actions. Students took part in this workshop to identify fact from fiction and look at ways they can take action to improve their own lives, the school site, their communities and beyond. Secondly students investigated the impacts and some solutions to fast fashion choices.
They investigated the impacts of microfibres and plastics in Science and created T-shirt bags as an example of upcycling old clothes, so as to get as much use as possible from previous items of clothing.
A third theme centred around biodiversity and the importance of having beautiful outdoor spaces to spend time in.
Students learn about the calming nature of green spaces and how to meditate and spend time in these spaces. They even investigated the impact on their heart rates.
They also used iPads and devices to identify the variety of plant species across three areas of school site to discover the most biodiverse areas a digitally map them, showing the significant impact of the £12,000 of National Education Nature Park funding across the school site.
Finally, students were able to create bug hotels to support pollinator insects to help our garden area and fruit trees in the future.
But it didn’t stop there! At lunch time students were able to choose a low carbon option: vegetarian sweet potato, chickpea and spinach tikka (sourced within the region).
In the afternoon students reflected on their day and were able to design their future world and make personal pledges on how they can help to make a difference.
Finally the whole Year group had a presentation given by students from each activity who presented the work they had done, with prize giving by our Head of Governors, Michael Cowley and supported by the teachers involved on the day and our Executive Headmaster, Jude Hunton.
A great day was had by all. If students, or families, would like to take part/support our sustainability initiatives please make contact with the EcoSchools group (meeting Monday lunch times in Room 41), with Ms Murphy, the gardening group with Ms E Abeledo or contact school.
Mon 24th November-Friday 28th November
As part of the national 2 weeks, SGS took part in the annual Switch It Off Fortnight.
Why? To reduce our electricity usage and become more aware of turning off lights and appliances,
If we use less electricity, we are using less national resources such as gas, which is more sustainable and environmentally friendly. This will help in our fight to combat global warming!
By committing to turning off unused appliances and lights, the average school saves 10% of their typical energy usage. Saving money and helping reduce wasted electricity!
Benefits
- Educational: Students learn about energy usage and its impact on the environment.
- Practical: Schools can actively save energy and reduce their energy bills.
- Environmental: Helps to tackle climate change by reducing energy waste
Our Impact
- During Switch Off Fortnight, we reduced our electricity usage by 3.4% compared to our average of the last year.
- Over the Christmas holidays, our electricity usage decreased by 9.9% compared to Christmas 2024/25. This is equivalent to 2,700kWh and saved 110kg CO2
- Switch Off Fortnight helped us to change our habits for the better so we can continue to keep our electricity usage to a minimum.
Curriculum
Our Y11 students studied 'Resource Management' for their GCSE’s focusing on food miles, local food sourcing, organic produce and sustainable food supplies. Through the curriculum they are learning how food demand affects the UK’s carbon footprint, how new energy sources and biotechnology are changing the world and how this impacts the state of food security for the economy in years to come.
