The UKSSN brings together the young people, school staff and educators who drive sustainability learning and action across the UK, operating under the umbrella of Global Action Plan. In 2021 the UKSSN ‘Operations Group’ was launched to support and encourage operations, finance and business management teams to engage with the sustainability agenda. We do this via our network meetings, website to share resources, podcasts and now with the creation of the Greener Schools Index.
The Ops Group has grown rapidly with members working in a range of educational settings, from individual local authority schools through to large multi-academy trusts and federations.
Participating in the network provides a range of benefits:
• Opportunity to meet colleagues working in sustainability, to share successes and challenges.
• The chance to hear from organisations who are working hard to support our sector in its transition to a greener, cleaner future.
• A place to share resources – we encourage members to share policies, documents and other resources that have had impact in their own organisation (why reinvent the wheel?).
• Online network meetings supplemented with podcasts and blogs. We have a new podcast in development with ISBL that we aim to launch very soon.
• Professional development – learn more about sustainability and the climate crisis.
• Opportunity to hear what is happening with the DfE sustainability team and other new initiatives open to our sector.
• Find out about local and national events where sustainability is on the agenda.
• The chance to get more involved – e.g. speaker opportunities, the chance to write articles about work you have been involved in.
We know working collectively will give us the best chance of achieving our climate and biodiversity ambitions.