Leading recruiter looks to the past to help secure a brighter future for pupils in Wales

Acorn by Synergie supports Newport’s Llanmartin Primary in trialling learning tool created to help schools nationwide become carbon neutral

Acorn by Synergie has made a return to the past in a bid to secure a brighter future for school pupils learning about climate change in its home city of Newport.

Pupils at Llanmartin Primary School are being supported by the recruiter to trial a new online learning tool called Our Classroom Climate, created to inspire students on the importance of sustainability in their local communities.

As a result, Llanmartin students now have access to a year-long climate change programme providing them with practical experiments and curriculum-based lessons that have the potential to make their school, and others across the UK, carbon neutral.

Victoria Curtis, head teacher at Llanmartin Primary, said: “The Our Climate Classroom programme feeds perfectly into wider curriculum aims laid out to ensure that the issue of climate change is firmly embedded within the learning experiences of our children and young people nationwide.”

“Our pupils have found the whole experience thoroughly engaging and we’re really grateful to the team at Acorn by Synergie in helping us to become one of the first schools to try out this new technology, therefore.”

As part of the partnership, children at Llanmartin also received a visit from one of their own, former pupil Tania Cummins, who now works at Acorn by Synergie’s UK headquarters in Newport as its Head of Compliance.

Tania said: “Education plays such a vital role in helping to tackle climate change, and programmes like Our Classroom Climate are set to play a crucial part in creating a better, greener world for the next generation and beyond.”

“The course itself is also designed to help meet government aims in helping schools to meet its sustainability and climate change targets, and is really engaging and informative too.”

“So, it’s been a real pleasure to have made a return to my old primary school and relive a key part of my past as part of a hugely positive project that has been designed to create a brighter future for us all,” Tania added.

Acorn by Synergie is one of the UK’s leading recruiters with a global outlook and 40 branches operating nationwide, with its own CSR and sustainability strategy in place too.

As part of this work, and following the trial with Llanmartin Primary pupils, it now aims to support this strategy further by rolling out use of the Our Climate Classroom programme across its wider network of branches and clients UK wide too.

Mark Douglas, who founded our Climate Classroom in partnership with Cardiff University, said: “We were delighted to inform the wonderful school team at Llanmartin that Acorn wished to fund them to receive  our climate change education programme.”

“The local Acorn team were given a very warm welcome at the school and even got involved in some climate change lessons including capturing Carbon in the classroom – it was so good to see local companies adding real social value.”

To find out more about Acorn by Synergie and its work supporting local communities across the UK, visit www.acornpeople.com

Image caption: OCC Llanmartin Pupils with Tania Cummins and Head Victoria Curtis