Plastic Free Schools FAQs

We do not expect schools to be totally plastic free. Our aim is to free where we live from single-use plastic: the avoidable stuff that’s everywhere. Things like plastic drinks bottles, disposable coffee cups, sachets, bathroom plastics, excessive food packaging, takeaway containers etc. These are the things that are having a huge impact on our environment and which we can make changes in our lives to eliminate. Take a look at our list of ‘The Offenders’ for the kind of items we mean. It’s time to kick our single-use addiction.

Plastic Free Schools is a pupil led initiative designed to help guide your school through the process of ditching single-use plastic, from conducting a single-use plastic audit at your school, to challenging government and industry and removing single-use plastic items from your school for good. The first step is for your school to sign up to the programme via our website so that we can send you a Plastic Free Schools pack.

In your Plastic Free Schools pack, you will receive five objective cards for the school to follow in order to reach Plastic Free Schools Status. You will also receive everything you need for a clean-up including sacks and gloves

As your school completes the objectives, all you need to do is provide us with photographic evidence and short updates on each objective. Once you’ve completed everything your school will achieve Plastic Free Schools Status and you will have been part of an incredible movement all across the country to eradicate single-use plastic from our schools and our environment.

To help schools tackle the use of single-use plastics in schools, we have designed a pupil-led programme called Plastic Free Schools. It will help you guide your nursery or school through the process of ditching single-use plastic, from conducting a plastic audit at your school, to challenging government and industry and removing single-use plastic items from your school for good.

Because we are such a small team here in the office and are unable to attend one off talks and events, we have developed our Plastic Free Schools programme which enables us to engage with hundreds of schools all across the country. to inspire pupils to tackle single-use plastic. Plastic Free Schools is a pupil-led initiative designed to help guide schools through the journey of eradicating single-use plastics.
We also have an amazing team of volunteer Regional Reps and volunteer Plastic Free Community leaders. Look for your local volunteer on our website or email us to see if they can attend your event.

Yes! It is absolutely free!

We provide you with a physical welcome pack when you sign-up, resources on your personalised dashboard, support from our Education team and access to exclusive free events throughout the year. When you complete the programme we will send you a plaque in the post too – all for free!

We have three different programmes aimed at nursery aged children, primary (key stage 2) and secondary (key stage 3). If your school contains multiple age groups, you can choose which programme you would like to follow. We usually recommend the primary programme (Key Stage 2) for mixed ages as this can be easily adapted to suit older or younger children. You can’t mix and match with the programmes, so the one you choose is the one you need to complete all of the objectives for.

If you signed up before September 2020, you will need to create an account on our brand-new Plastic Free Schools website. If you signed-up after this time, you will have created an account when you signed-up.

On here, you can access all of the resources you’ll need and submit evidence for each of your five objectives, including uploading files. We will then check through it and once we’re happy, it will be approved. When you have completed all five objectives we will send you a certificate and plaque in the post and you will have been part of an incredible movement to create lasting, positive change.

It is possible to complete every objective and submit evidence without ever sending us a photo of your pupils. We never ask for a photo of your pupil’s faces. You can upload images of your completed objective cards or plastic-free swaps without including any people or protected children’s faces. The purpose of the evidence is to show that you have completed the objectives.
As a teacher, you need to ensure that the photos you use as evidence meet your school’s policies on child protection and photos. We store all photos of children and vulnerable adults in a safe and secure way.
From time to time we need photos from our programmes to promote our work and ensure that it can continue by being funded. We also like to celebrate with you when you complete the programme and become an official Plastic Free Nursery or School. For this reason, we ask that you only submit photos that we have permission to use.

A. Plastic Free Schools is a pupil led initiative designed to guide schools through the process of ditching single-use plastic. The first step is for a teacher from the school to sign up to the programme via our website: https://www.sas.org.uk/plastic-free-schools/

It would be fantastic if you could encourage the schools in your area to sign up to the programme. This would enable us to support them in removing unnecessary single-use plastic from their schools.

Once a school has signed up we then send out a Plastic Free Schools pack, which contains five objective cards for the school to follow in order to reach Plastic Free Schools Status. They will also receive everything needed for a clean-up including sacks and gloves. As the school completes the objectives, all they need to do is provide us with photographic evidence and short updates on each objective. Once they’ve completed everything the school will achieve Plastic Free Schools Status and will have been part of an incredible movement all across the country to eradicate single-use plastic from our schools and our environment.

At this time, we are only able to offer this pupil-led programme to UK based schools. However, we are delighted to hear that you are wanting to take steps to reduce the use of single-use plastics and although we are unable to sign you up, please feel free to use the information on our website as a source of inspiration to make changes in your school too!
You may also want to check out Plastic Free Campus from Break Free From Plastic, of which we are a coalition member.

This programme has been designed for nurseries and schools and, at present, cannot be completed by other groups of young people. However, we are excited that you want to tackle single-use plastic in your group and we encourage you to use the resources on our website as a source of inspiration and get involved in our events too.

We’re excited that you want to tackle unnecessary single-use plastic in your group! These programmes have been designed for education establishments that are the primary education provider for groups of 10+ children. If you’re unsure if your group is eligible, please get in touch at education@sas.org.uk. Please also feel free to use the resources on our website as a source of inspiration for your journey.

We’re excited that you want to tackle unnecessary single-use plastic in your home-school setting! These programmes have been designed for education establishments that are the primary education provider for groups of 10+ children. If you’re unsure if your group is eligible, please get in touch at education@sas.org.uk. Please also feel free to use the resources on our website as a source of inspiration for your journey.

We’re excited that you want to tackle unnecessary single-use plastic in your group! These programmes have been designed for education establishments that are the primary education provider and not for groups that have different young people on a part-time basis. We are unable to sign-up forest schools or outdoor education centres to our Plastic Free Schools programme at present. However, you can apply to become a Plastic Free Business Champion or Ally with our Plastic Free Communities programme.

We’re excited that you want to tackle unnecessary single-use plastic on your campus! These programmes have been designed to cater for young people up to Key Stage 3 level. As a University, you can apply to become a Plastic Free Business Champion with our Plastic Free Communities programme. Please also feel free to use the resources on our website as a source of inspiration for your plastic-free journey.

Yes, you can! Our Primary programme is aimed at Key Stage 2 and our Secondary programme is aimed at Key Stage 3. Choose the programme that best fits the ages of your pupils. From experience, the Primary programme can be easily adapted up or down for different groups.