Creation of a school uniform swap shop open to all ages for pupils across our secondary school to help support responsible consumption and production of clothing based items to reduce waste.
Our whole school is involved in a monthly discussion that provides all learners with the opportunity to discuss school issues, decisions and to overall make a positive change to school improvements and provision. Within these discussions we are able to reach a wider number of learners across all year groups and abilities to find out pupil’s true opinions and issues that they are facing. The school council/ pupil voice, Prefect Team and Green Team (Eco club) have be able to set up a uniform swap shop. This allows all members of our school community to provide second hand uniform items that they no longer need without having to create more waste. Instead all families using our school’s media accounts have made aware of these opportunities to both drop off any unwanted items but to also visit the school especially during school holidays to see the uniform that they can access free of charge.
We’ve taken pupils opinions and looked at how we can best support our community by creating a uniform swap shop which is open to all learners. We feel that this target works well across our school community as it involves pupils from our school council, prefect team and eco team working together to collaborate on an important opportunity to reduce waste and consumption.
As a member of Green Team our schools Eco-Club and Senior Prefect team I have been involved in the planning and delivery of the schools own uniform swap shop. It was a great idea to help support pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to gain access to school uniform supplies that some families have been struggling with. I have been involved with Green Team since I started secondary school and feel that students can be listened to and our voices can be used to make changes for all in our school community. I feel that the schools own uniform swap shop is a great example of this Leo, Year 11 student.
Leo, Year 11 student.
I think it’s a great opportunity for the school to support families’ to allow and encourage all to reuse, reduce and recycle uniform supplies and also support donations of other kinds such as prom dresses, outfits for school concerts and productions as well as book donations which our English department have been asking for to help support our new school library.” Miss H Morgan, Eco Schools Coordinator
Miss H Morgan, Eco Schools Coordinator
Pupils being able to access a uniform swap shop can provide greater opportunities to participate in school life including sports lesson. This can also allow many learners and family members to have improved levels of mental and physical health as it reduces the worry and burden of spending money when families are experiencing financial hardship.
Our success has been shared on our school’s social media and webpage to continue raising awareness of reusing items such as clothing through donations. Our uniform swap shop has also been able to accept donations of prom dresses and also clothing items that our school production has been able to wear in this year’s show. We have also been fortunate to receive a number of book donations for our new school library covering different genres for our learners to enjoy.
Our next steps are looking to develop the swap shop to be run with additional items to support learners accessing our new sports barn which requires specific footwear. There is also the opportunity to share this success with our cluster primary schools to offer new learners starting secondary school the option to visit our swap shop ready for September. We hope to inspire our cluster primary to start their own uniform swap shops to support reducing waste.
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