Around ten years ago a group of our year 9 pupils started up a Fairtrade initiative, and since then the Academy have been keen to promote and support Fairtrade with pupils and teaching staff alike.
In the past the Fairtrade pupils have been selected by the Fairtrade Foundation to attend the 15th Anniversary of the Fairtrade Mark at the celebration at 10 Downing Street and to receive one of the visiting Fairtrade Foundation international producers. In the last couple of years we have also supported other local schools who are interested in gaining Fairtrade status.
Currently we have students from year 10 and year 11 who put the effort in promoting Fairtrade around the school using the television screens, notice boards, going into assemblies and holding Fairtrade cake sales. They have also had a great success with the Fairtrade shop that runs each Friday lunchtime for pupils and staff to buy delicious Fairtrade treats, a non-profit shop using Traidcraft.
We have recently been informed that we have retained our Fairtrade School status again, reaching the highest award of Fair Achiever school, a real honour and a reflection of all the hard work the academy has done. The school is guaranteed to keep it’s Fairtrade status until 2019, but we won’t be putting our feet up! We will now be working hard to make sure we can retain this prestigious award in the future.
We purchase our goods through Traidcraft, if you wish to buy from Traidcraft direct then you can here. The Year 7's are shown a presentation highlighting Traidcraft and what they are trying to do to help stop poverty. You can view a PDF version of the Presentation here (PDF).
Sustainability
We were able to encourage other schools in the local area at the Fairtrade Teachers' Conference at Horncastle on 19th January 2011. We were also invited to give a workshop demonstration about Fairtrade Schools at the 'Get is Sussed' Conference at Bishop Grosseteste College in March 2011.
