Curriculum, and Resources

Welcome to these resources to support your setting in becoming more sustainable in theory and practice.

Included, are six dedicated sets of resource and practitioner knowledge cards, across six different themes of sustainability. These aim to assist you in implementing long-term behaviour changes as practitioners, as well as enable you to introduce the theme to your children and families.

They include:

• Food Miles
• Food Growing
• Food Waste
• Waste
• Recycling
• Resource Reuse.

Each resource contains:

• Key and factual information about the theme
• Making It Real activities to enable you to bring the theme to life
• Ideas on how to display the theme and engage parents/families
• Links to the early years curriculum
• Guidance regarding the age range of the activities
• Additional guidance and resources links to expand your knowledge and practice
• A practical activity card to enable everyone to get hands-on.

These are intended to be an introduction to a specific theme, we hope that this will then give you further ideas and confidence to be able to develop it further as a setting.

• Talking Together in Cambridgeshire’s Festival of Stories highlights how stories can help young children feel safe and connected to others, and help them better understand the world we live in. The theme for the 2024 festival was Caring for Our Planet, focusing on three Rs of sustainability: Reconnecting with nature, reusing household waste, and recycling at home.

• UNICEF parenting tips on talking to your child about climate change and how parents can have an honest and hopeful conversation about climate change without ignoring the reality and scale of the issue.

• NASA scientists a guide to climate change for kids aims to answer some of children’s biggest questions about climate change.

• WWF Kids' planet: resources and activities for families encourage the whole family to get involved and explore nature and sustainability at home.

• The British Science Association's teaching children about climate change and sustainability provides practical science activities to support young people in relating to and contextualising climate change issues.

• Take part in the Green Tree Schools Award with the Woodland Trust and help your local environment through free, fun and practical projects and activities.

• PECT has many free downloadable Nature's School - Projects resources for everyone to enhance children’s understanding of the world and enable them to discover more about the environment.

• Join the RHS Campaign for School Gardening for support resources, advice, and training to encourage children and young people to explore the outdoors and learn how to care for plants and our planet.

• Learning Through Landscapes, Outdoor Learning and Play Charity has nature grants worth up to £500 to promote sustainable projects.

• Waterbeach Waste offers free Waste Education Services for settings and schools.

Other useful links:

• Eco Craft - Recycled Card, Paper, Craft and Packaging (eco-craft.co.uk)
• TerraCycle
• Recycle an Item | Recycle Now
• Blueprint Businesses - PECT
• Rubbish & recycling - Peterborough City Council
• Plastic Tracker | The Ocean Cleanup
• Waste Clock - Education (biffa.co.uk)
• Watch our World's social and environmental challenges (theworldcounts.com)

• Top tips for you and your children on how to help against climate change - what can we do in schools and settings?

Let us engage your students and support your curriculum.

Sacrewell invites your learners to explore the Farming with Nature workshops in an inspiring natural environment. Delivering enriching outdoor educational experiences to school pupils is fundamental to what they do at Sacrewell, and welcoming young people to their beautiful countryside setting allows them to fulfil the aims of the William Scott Abbott Trust.

Cambridgeshire Repair Cafe Network.

Repair Cafes are community events that match people who need stuff fixed with people who like fixing things. Their local, experienced, volunteer repairers repair all sorts of household items such as kettles, toasters, lamps, laptops, clothes, toys, bikes and more. All repairs are free, although they welcome donations to support our growing network.

There are over 30 different organisers - community groups, technology companies, PTAs, Parish Councils, and others - who run Repair Cafes within the Cambridgeshire Repair Cafe Network. Each Repair Cafe independently manages bookings and usually includes a combination of both pre-booked and walk-in slots.

The Cambridgeshire Repair Cafe Network is run by Cambridge Carbon Footprint. They support new and established Repair Cafes in Cambridgeshire, hold regular ‘How to run a Repair Cafe in your community’ training sessions, help to link new Repair Cafes to local experienced repairers, lend out tools, facilitate repairer skillshares and help with things like insurance.

The Cambridgeshire Repair Cafe Network has been generously supported by Draper Tools, Mackays of Cambridge, Sentec a Xylem brand, 42 Technology, Cambridge City Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council, and Cambridgeshire County Council. They are always keen to make new contacts, so please get in touch with them if you are interested in helping people to get things fixed.

Cambridgeshire Child and Family Centres hold frequent clothes and toy swaps across the county. Check their latest events on Cambridgeshire Online:

• Clothing Bank at North Cambridge Child and Family Centre.
• Toy Library -Brown's Field Youth and Community Centre.
• MGR Toy Library – Merry Go Round Toy Library, based in Ross St Cambridge (cambstoylibrary.org.uk).

Remember also to check out local libraries. A library visit is a fantastic experience for young children. You can set up a class account, which is a great way to refresh book areas and not store books all year round when not in use.