Nurseries achieve award for sustainable citizenship

The OMEP Early Childhood Sustainable Citizenship Award (ESC) has been developed to support the early years sector to become more knowledgeable about sustainable development. Parents,  practitioners and children are encouraged to work together to create a more sustainable future.

The scheme is organised around an ‘ESC Passport’ for each child with children gaining stickers to put in their passport. Each sticker is awarded for completing activities suggested in I-care booklets around caring for each other, the community and the planet which are in support of the UN Sustainable Development Goals of:

• Social-cultural sustainability
• Economic sustainability
• Environmental sustainability

along with literacy and numeracy, which are essential in order to be personally sustainable. 

Professor John Siraj-Blatchford, director of SchemaPlay which devised the award, emphasises that sustainability is not just about environmental issues. ‘The UN Sustainability Goals are comprehensive,’ he said. ‘We need to have the education of sustainable citizens as an overall rationale of early childhood. It needs to be seen as fundamental to early years education rather than a “bolt on”.’

Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery Sidcup, in south east London (pictured), Young Friends Nursery in Hove, East Sussex and Unity Montessori School in Woodside Park, north London have all successfully completed Bronze ESC accreditation. Each setting started by conducting a baseline audit of their ESC provision and was required to have at least 60 per cent parental engagement.

A strong environmental ethos and aim to reduce plastic consumption inspired Young Friends Nursery to participate in the scheme while at Monkey Puzzle Day Nursery Sidcup staff wanted to link up and expand on their existing forest school ethos, engagement with the local community and focus on STEM activities.

‘Families have been really engaged and ensured that children’s knowledge is building in looking after our planet,’ said owner Sharon Chahal. ‘Being awarded the Bronze award has been an achievement that the whole nursery is immensely proud of and we are now looking forward to working towards Silver.’

Children were especially interested to learn about Fairtrade and how something can be classed as a Fairtrade product. ‘The children recognise the symbol and understand what it is. The know about children working in factories and people not getting a proper price for their product. Now at snack time if children seen a Fairtrade stickers on their banana they’ll comment that it’s a “good banana”,’ said Ms Chahal. ‘We feel the award is helping to teach children more about the world around them and global issues.’

Learning about food production has inspired the nursery to get an allotment and children are now keen to repair and recycle as much as possible, including mending books.  

At Unity Montessori School they engaged with community schemes, including a food bank, and local shops, with the aim of fostering respectful relationships and solidarity. While it was felt that children became more aware of their own environment, they also developed social and emotional skills and early maths and literacy skills by running shops, pricing items and making menus.

SchemaPlay is now looking for more early years providers to embark on the ESC Award. The first 50 settings to register will receive a complimentary copy of the supporting SchemaPlay text ‘Education for Sustainable Citizenship in Early Childhood’.

• For more information contact the OMEP UK Award Team: escomepuk@gmail.com