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Oxfordshire Schools Clean Air Network

Oxford Friends of the Earth is a thriving and effective local group that has been active for over 40 years. Our purpose is to work together to promote a healthy and sustainable environment

Oxfordshire Schools Clean Air Network (OxSCAN) is an Oxford Friends of the Earth programme set up in 2019 to promote clean air and healthy means of transport for schools. We are doing this in cooperation with the City and County Council staff who are working with schools on transport and pollution.

2021: new resources for schools

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OxSCAN are now cooperating with Cool World Consulting, a consultancy working on air pollution behavioural change programmes. They have  launched a school air quality programme called Cleaner Air Sooner. With the strapline of ‘Clean Air in the Making’, it encourages schools and PTFAs to undertake clean air projects (6 to choose from) and provides them with the all the resources and guidance they need. The 6 areas are: Awareness Raising (and monitoring), Active Travel, Anti-Idling, Re-imagining Streets (Play Streets, School Streets), Mapping, and Green Infrastructure.

CWC will also give 1-2-1 advice and assistance to schools and PTFAs that would like it, especially those without previous experience in air quality initiatives.

We are funded by the Clean Air Fund so all the project toolkits and materials are made available free to schools (and other groups), and can be downloaded via the Toolkit pages. All we require to download the materials is the school’s name and an email address.

We recommend starting with: “Raising Awareness” which encourages schools to get hold of air quality data, and communicate it to their school community (using our resources), together with a plan for how they intend to clean up the air. This project engages the community and paves the way for future projects.

The guidance document within each project toolkit runs through the whole project from start to finish, gives an idea about the time commitment and cost, and points to the specific template letters and other resources, at the points they are needed. The Raising Awareness guidance document is one example.

We also have a few school gate banners left for schools that sign up soon.

The resources also include –

  • A video lesson about air pollution, with follow up activity.
  • Webinar recording – Cleaner Air Sooner and Client Earth talk about how schools can get started on cleaner air for their school.
  • Report – What makes an effective school-based campaign? Machine learning findingsThis briefing, conducted by ethical data research company, Signify, for the Cleaner Air Sooner programme, consists of desk research and a machine learning analysis of social media. It identifies the features, content and elements that led some environmental projects based in schools to have huge impact in their communities.

Previous work by OxSCAN

Clean Air Day – Thursday 8 October 2020.  Oxford Friends of the Earth hosted a webinar with some inspiring speakers including the head of Windmill School.  You can watch the event here on Youtube  (the film is currently unedited) with (in order of speaking):

  • Kayla Schulte, OxAIR
  • Lynn Knapp, Windmill School (starts c.14 mins in)
  • Felix Leach, Oxford University – the OXARIA project
  • Tom Hayes Oxford City Council, Cabinet member for the environment
  • Jenny Bates, national air pollution campaigner for Friends of the Earth

 


  • More photos to come

  It also featured a round-up of actions across the county at pollution blackspots and at schools and a nursery – Link to list of speakers, recording of event and display of photos.

New School banner launched   

Windmill Primary School was the winner of a competition to design a banner to be displayed outside Oxford City primary schools.  The prize giving and banner launch took place on 14 September 2020 when prizes were awarded by Mini Grey, the Oxford based children’s author and illustrator.

The competition was run in partnership with Oxford City Council.  The council now have several banners available for loan to schools.  Please contact the Oxford City Council  if you would like one of the banners for display at your school.

Healthy Streets and Active Travel   We are also part of the Oxford Coalition for Healthy Streets and Active Travel – COHSAT. On the CoHSAT site there is a ‘schools page‘ with further information on how schools can take action on promoting clean air, healthy streets and active travel plans.

Oxford clean air day seminar June 2019

On June 20th 2019 Oxford FoE held a seminar at County Hall on work by schools on air pollution and active travel. We heard from Windmill School and Botley School (both primaries) and Cherwell School (secondary) as well as the County and City councils and the OxAir group.  There were a number of useful presentations and the slides for those presentations can be accessed here.

The presentations were:

We are continuing to develop our contacts with schools. We need your help. These can be via teachers, governors and of course parents and students. Please contact us via cleanair@oxfoe.co.uk is you are involved with a school in any way and can help us make contact.