One of the things that makes Inspirations unique is our outdoors ethos. We take ideas, guidance and resources from the natural environment to use with the children to enrich their learning. And through this partnership with mother nature we are aware of the importance of sustainability, and using natural resources in a measured and purposeful way.

This has been our way of working since we transitioned from Dolphins to Inspirations all those years ago. But now we can see the importance of sustainability come to the forefront of education with the government requiring settings to have a ‘sustainability lead’.

Putting into writing what we have been doing for years at Inspirations felt like a natural step, but this initiative also prompted us to think about how our setting impacts the environment and what else we can do to run our nursery whilst looking after our natural world.

Our Climate Action Plan

This plan details what we have done and continue to do to support nature and become resilient to the changing climate. We looked at the themes of decarbonisation, adaptation and resilience, biodiversity, and climate education, along with the United Nations sustainable development goals.

We teach children the importance of recycling and reusing, our classrooms filled with natural resources reflect this. A huge part of the children’s daily life is nature, planting, collecting our grown fruit or veg and cooking with it.We found that we have a strong background in sustainability, through our eco schools accreditation, and focus on forest school and outdoor learning. From the compost collective so we can compost some of our food waste, to the simple fact that being outdoors for longer means less energy is used powering lightbulbs inside, we have found simple ways to be sustainable!

Our next steps in sustainability will continue our eco schools work and also look at integrating more themes of sustainability across the whole nursery. Some of our plans you may have seen – take a look at the raised beds near the toddler room garden to see what we have been growing!

Sustainability, by its very nature, is a long term goal. We hope to do our bit to help conserve our natural world and help our young people strive for a sustainable future.

Daisy (Sustainability Lead)

Photos taken at Inspirations Nurseries Horsforth by Nathalie