The next generation of clean air changemakers

At the start of this school year, in September 2022, we launched our pilot project to teach pupils in London schools about the dangers of air pollution. We’re now working with a huge 141 schools across London. Project lead, Amy talks us through the project and what we’ve achieved in our first year.

Our pilot programme gives pupils everything they need to see how bad the pollution is around their schools.  Schools are given free air pollution monitors to use over a four-week period. These are then sent for analysis in the laboratory, and we share the results with the pupils. 

When we set out, we had a goal of working with 150 primary schools across London to help children learn about pollution and how to become young changemakers fighting for clean air. By November, the first monitoring packs had been sent out to 14 schools and we shared our first results with the schools at the start of the spring term.

Picking up the pace

In March, our team expanded, and the project really started to pick up pace. One of the highlights was a joint assembly at Herne Hill School, where we presented their monitoring results alongside their eco club and our respiratory nurse specialist, Naomi. We also had an amazing opportunity to film with the Mayor of London’s team at two schools to showcase our work for World Asthma Day. 

Reaching more children

In May, we received exciting news from the Kusuma Trust that our request for the project to be extended to secondary schools had been approved. We then started recruiting London secondaries to join the project and developing new learning resources specially for secondary students to help them learn about clean air. One highlight was visiting Merton Abbey School to present an assembly and talk about the students plans to reduce car travel to/from school.  

Showcasing our work

June was a busy month for us, where we got to really showcase our work. To showcase our clean air work in schools, and our new Clean Air Activist project, which links with our campaigning work and encourages pupils to share their voice about the importance of clean air. We were invited to hold a stall at Mums for Lungs Clean Air Carnival in Lambeth. We had a great afternoon speaking with 100s of parents, children and local professionals about the importance of our air pollution work. June also saw the UK’s annual Clean Air Day, where we visited Norfolk House School, to present their monitoring results with a specially created assembly to mark the day.  

A huge success so far

This brings us up to date and coming to the end of our first year of the project. We are thrilled to say we’re now working with 141 schools with another six months go. Half of those are from deprived boroughs This was one of our key aims because we know that those in most deprived boroughs are the most affected while also contributing to air pollution the least.

We still have space for more schools to join – visit our website to find out more.