2012 has been an exciting year of change and achievement at Warburton Primary School. After having been a building site for the past three years we finally moved into our brand new and renovated classrooms in first term and in third term we welcomed our new Principal, Cameron Heath, to enjoy our vibrant and energised learning environment at Warburton.

Our new Senior School building and updated Junior learning Hub as well as staffroom and toilets, were all designed with Sustainable practice in mind.

Energy Saving Features include:

• Large windows opening on to our beautiful grounds to make use of natural, free light
• Low wattage lights with energy saving globes
• Solar Panels
• New internal blinds in staffroom to minimise heat loss and absorption
• Modern hot water service that replaced the old staffroom ‘urn’
• Computers, laptops and Photocopiers on timer charge and sleep modes

We have also been assisted by Mark Smith from Planet Savers, with even more ideas on how to further reduce our Energy use. After the Walk-through Energy Audit with Mark, our School leaders have come up with some great initiatives on how to reinforce energy reduction with staff, students and School Community. The Leaders and the Green Team who are responsible for placing “Switch off” stickers throughout the school, are currently holding a poster competition that will provide an artistic flair to our energy wise messages. The winning posters, judged by the School Leaders, will each receive a book on sustainability and recycling and ALL posters will be displayed around the school to further spread the Energy Reduction word!

Earlier in the year we held a successful Walk to School Day and once again the School Leaders from The Green Team incorporated various aspects of the Walk To School through Maths, Language and Investigations. We were involved in surveying the whole school on the different modes of transport used. The information was collated and the total kilometres of travelling for the entire school, was calculated and represented in various graphs and charts. We finally did a comparison, between the before and after The Walk To School, of kilometres used to transport students to and from Warburton Primary. We were very surprised by the results! You can read more by visiting our Transport Audit post — http://dev.sustainability.ceres.org.au/node/1654

~ The Green Team