Thank you for signing up for the Great Big Schools Clean – now what’s next?

Thank you for signing up to the Great Big Schools Clean and joining with thousands of school children coming together to clean up our country. You might already be familiar with organising litter picks, but if this will be your first, here’s our simple guide to getting started.

Did you know, many councils are already supporting schools with one-off or regular litter picks. Talk to someone at your council – you might be able to borrow equipment, get our #GBSpringClean campaign rubbish bags and get some advice too.

Plan your area – do you want to litter pick around your school grounds or venture off-site? Either way, visit the site first to do a risk assessment. And again, if you are going off-site, talk to your local council. They could hep you choose a suitable site, join you on the day or arrange for the litter to be collected afterwards.

Involve your Eco-Committee from the very beginning. Helping to plan your litter-pick is great experience for them, and will help make your event a success. Older children can be involved in the risk assessment and for any age it’s a good opportunity to talk about risk and taking care of yourself and each other. Could your Committee design posters to promote or event? (or download ours here.)

See how it can help your next Eco-Schools award application.
* Monitoring and evaluation – eg before-and-after photos, number of bags, weight of rubbish, ratio of litter to recyclables
* Whole school involvement – lots of schools are involving all their pupils (but its fine if its just one class or your Eco-Committee)
* Topic work – great links with the litter topic but also waste if you extend your discussions to recycling too
* Curriculum links – use the data you collect in maths or ICT lessons, use (clean) litter or waste in art projects or tackle litter via your persuasive writing lessons

Remember, you know your class better than anyone, so just use your knowledge and common sense. Warn them about dangerous and dirty litter. How long you spend litter-piking will depend on your children and the weather. We’d say an hour is enough for anyone but even ten minutes at break time is a great contribution to the country’s largest litter pick ever.

And finally – enjoy getting involved in the Great Big Schools Clean – together we are cleaning up this country.