Dear Sarah
Thank you very much for inviting Friends of the Earth to
give the assemblies this week. Its been a very enjoyable and interesting
experience for me and I hope the students have learned a lot. They
certainly seemed to be interested and concerned about the issues we touched
on. One boy in yr 9 thanked me afterwards and said he was very
interested and asked if a 13 yr old could really write to the council or MP (I
had emphasised that it’s all our responsibility to DO something to stop the
rot). Of course I said yes. Another girl (poss yr 8) very sweetly
came to say sorry she had had to leave the room for health reasons – and she didn’t want me to think it was for any other reason.
Another boy asked where the nearest FOE group is (Leeds – but no reason
why students shouldn’t start their own local one)
It would be great if more schools invited FOE speakers
since it was worrying to discover that the students seemed unaware
of this well established organisation and most of these crucial issues, and I
guess this will be the case with most young people at the moment. I spoke
briefly with Ms W and offered to come back to discuss things in more depth
with your school council or any other group. I also suggested the school
might want to set up a hustings before the election in early May so that
students can see and hear at first hand what each political party has to say
about these issues. Possibly parents and the public could be
invited too. I did emphasise to the 6th form that all
these issues ARE political and they should get informed. As you probably
know, FOE is not aligned to any political party, but their policies are
virtually identical to Green Party policy. You will see that I am a Green Party
candidate for May’s election – but I didn’t mention this to the students since
I was giving the talks on behalf of FOE. I was, however, in
two minds about mentioning this, since I feel it’s important that young
people (particularly girls) know that politics is a route they might be
interested to follow as a response to their concerns.
On a practical note – I wonder if the school might want to
reimburse my travel expenses which amounted to about 30 pounds for the 5 days
(train and bus). I have tickets if that would help.
I left a poster with reception showing bee-friendly flowers
and wonder if the school might consider making a wild flower meadow! The
Woodland Trust is offering free trees to schools at the moment. Last but
not least, regarding solar panels – please see FOE’s current project to
encourage solar on school roofs: I know you have some – but maybe there is room
for more?!
Please convey my thanks to Phil the techno wizard for his
help and to everyone else who made my visits so pleasant. Thank you
again, Sarah, for making the effort to invite us: having been a teacher
myself, I know it’s a big effort to go beyond the excessive day to day workload
to make external arrangements!
Very best wishes
Shan Oakes
For Friends of the Earth
