Our Environment

Oakfield Preparatory School

Our Environment

Care is one of our 6 Cs and is core to our Oakfield values. This means being kind to yourself, being considerate to everyone around you, but also respecting our local and global environment.

If I look after Planet Earth like Oakfield looks after me, Planet Earth will be just fine

Valerie, Lower Foundation pupil

Here at Oakfield we look to do this in lots of ways, after all the smallest acts can have the biggest impacts.

We know that meat production is an energy-intensive industry so every Monday at Oakfield is ‘Meat-free Monday’ with Angela and her amazing catering team only preparing tasty vegetarian meals for lunch.

Gardening is a lovely outdoor activity, relaxing to do and appreciated by people and bees alike! We have a Gardening club who have planted bulbs and flowers around the school grounds including lots of lovely daffodils. There’s nothing better than planting buds, getting your hands dirty, and learning about nature – all at the same time!

We also have a forested area in our spacious Pre-Prep playground including trees, plants and a 'bug hotel' where the children can learn about some of the smallest creatures around. Earth Cubs Club takes place as a weekly co-curricular club and offers the opportunity for Pre-Prep children to learn more about the natural world all around us.

While everyone at Oakfield has responsibility towards the environment we have our band of ‘eco-warriors’ who lead the charge in helping our school community to be as green as possible. They help come up with environmental initiatives, with past ones including weighing food waste after lunchtime to publicise and reduce what we throw away, monitoring recycling in classrooms, and reminding staff and pupils to switch off lights, taps and chargers when they aren’t in use.

We have a banner outside our Pre-Prep building to discourage people from driving their cars to school and to not sit with idling engines.

Plus, we have lots of great storage for bicycles and scooters in both the Prep and Pre-Prep playgrounds to encourage pupils to take non-polluting forms of transport to school.

We partner with Lambeth Council to offer free safe scooter training to our Year 1s and team-up with the Herne Hill Velodrome to give bicycle sessions to both our Pre-Prep and Prep children.

We are delighted that we were successful in our application to Greener City Fund for new red robins to be planted along the side of the Pre-Prep playground which some of our Year 1s had lots of fun helping to plant! They are both visually attractive and an effective green screen for traffic.

They complement our new fencing fantastically well and we are excited about further infrastructure projects planned over the coming months on our school exterior.

We are also hugely proud of our Clean Air for Oakfield Group who are a parent-led group who, in partnership with Oakfield staff, encourage green initiatives and awareness within the wider community.