Education, education, conservation: Schools go carbon neutral

It's hard to believe that the Liverpool district of Kensington took its name from the salubrious London equivalent in the 18th century, when local civic leaders, basking in the riches of their port's ocean-going trade, aspired to emulate the metropolis.

The sea trade eventually evaporated, and the district has become anything but a paradise. Yet a short walk from the betting shops and pubs of what might be called Kensington's high street, an Eden of the distinctly green and 21st-century kind is to be found. The Academy of St Francis of Assisi is immediately distinguishable by its lofty, curvy solar atrium, created with the same unmistakable plastic bubbles as Cornwall's Eden Project, and beneath it is no ordinary inner-city secondary school.

The atrium captures the sun, which provides up to 10 per cent of the school's electricity and contributes to St Francis's position among the growing number of schools to be built and run on green principals. Soon, this could be all schools: this week, the Government announced that all new secondaries - 200 are planned over the next three years - will be designed to be carbon neutral, or at least with greatly reduced carbon emissions. The scheme will reduce carbon emissions by an estimated 140,000 tons, and if it is successful, will be extended to the planned refurbishment of all existing schools, to take place over the next decade.

St Francis's green credentials extend beyond its buildings. It is also the only school in Britain to have made sustainability, rather than business or the arts, say, its specialism. From solar panels to sustainable-timber cladding, it is worlds away from its predecessor, Our Lady's Catholic High, a small, depressing 1960s-era school a mile down the road that was placed in special measures a decade ago after only 2 per cent of pupils managed to pass their GCSEs.

The new building incorporates many other feats of engineering. A big hole was dug out to create an underground sports and assembly hall ("School halls are often just big, ugly boxes, so we wanted something different," says the architect Richard Wood, of Capita Percy Thomas), and the sandstone excavated in the process was used on the flat roof created by the hall, where there are also ventilation windows. The surface will be used for growing plants under polytunnels for the allotments being acquired nearby. Some outer walls of the school are covered with a short-growing shrub to help drainage, and resemble mossy banks rather than traditional classroom blocks.

Of course, it takes more than just nifty work with photovoltaic cells and a JCB to persuade teenagers to embrace the green message surrounding them. That is why the architects were asked by the academy's chairman of governors, the Bishop of Liverpool James Jones, for a school that would, above all, "teach" about the environment.

The results are to be found in abundance inside the school. In the classroom, which would be a science lab anywhere else but is the "the environmental lab" at St Francis, the speckled desks are made from recycled yoghurt pots. There is also an unexpected surfeit of mobile phones - dozens, in fact, crushed down to create a montage that rams home a message about our junk society.

More of the phones are to be found in the cyber café, where a display panel ensures that students can see how much electricity is being generated at any time (currently 11.33kW, on this warm afternoon), the school's running total, and how much carbon dioxide has been saved so far by the school's creation (10,274kg and counting).

The south-facing atrium is a science lesson all on its own. Angled at 70 degrees to reflect the high-summer sun away, while collecting the benefits of the sun in spring and autumn, it has been delivering enough warmth recently to trigger open the atrium's heat-sensitive louvres. The north-facing classrooms, by contrast, are protected from the sun.

The effects of this new environment on pupils, in a district that is one of the usual suspects when social-deprivation indicators are trotted out, have been extraordinary. Earlier this year, St Francis came top of the Government's CVA (Contextual Value Added) league table - a new-style table that shows which schools have done the most to improve their pupils' education. The GCSE A*-C pass rate improved from 26 per cent to 40 per cent. "The new buildings, smart uniform and excellent facilities have given the students a sense of pride," says Steve McElroy, the school's vice-principal. "They have far more facilities, and can now work independently and much more effectively."

Quite what an effect an awareness of environmental issues is having on the students remains unclear, because the introduction of sustainability to the curriculum is only just beginning. But it's fairly safe to say that pupils at St Francis have a better grasp of global warming than at most of Britain's inner-city schools. "It's about too much carbon creating a greenhouse effect, keeping the heat in," says 13-year-old Steve, with confidence. And when three Year 8 boys were asked to create a DVD presentation for a forthcoming online conference, they produced The Sausages Story, calculating the food miles covered to deliver their favourite school dinner (it's 118 and counting: the consignment arrives from Hull but seems to have been imported from Denmark or the Netherlands).

Since there is no other dedicated environmental academy to draw on, it is also a learning process for Mr McElroy, who has responsibility for the way in which sustainability is being introduced into the classroom. "We've been very much inventing the lesson content," he says. "It's a very traditional curriculum but our strategy is to introduce children to the ideas at an early age, through 'gateway' subjects that get them thinking about their effect on the world."

In pursuit of ideas, the school has also consulted extensively with WWF's head of formal education, Ben Hren, and has drawn inspiration from other "green" schools - particularly Argyll Primary, the school in London's King's Cross that is developing similar ideas. The subject can be incorporated most easily into geography and science lessons, but it does feature in other ways. Maths lessons, for instance, can cover the financial transactions needed to buy materials for the gardens attached to each class, which, with support from the Groundwork Trust, are being cultivated by the students.

The route to the academy's creation has not been an entirely easy one. The costs of a sustainable school - 20 per cent extra for FSC- (Forest Stewardship Council) certified timber cladding, for instance, and the outlay on the atrium - saw substantial overruns in the early stages, which only extra handouts from the Department for Education and Science (DfES) could rectify. "It was the early days of academies, and that helped," says Wood. "We were actually facing the prospect of having to remove the 'environmental' aspects of the project to meet the budget." Confirmation that work could continue came from Lord Adonis, the Schools minister, by fax around 90 minutes before a crucial meeting of prospective parents.

There is also evidence that a sustainable school doesn't immediately bring the promised environmental benefits. Research last month by the Building Research Establishment (a charitable trust that advises on building methods) for the DfES, found that St Francis produced almost five times more CO2 in its first six months than was forecast at that tender stage. Carbon neutrality is also out of the equation just for now. The school estimates that it is 60 years off - largely because of the bold decision to build the new school almost entirely of concrete. This might seem to run counter to the school's green aspirations (a ton of CO2 goes into the atmosphere for every ton of concrete produced), but when it comes to absorbing and retaining heat, concrete is second to none, which means fewer hours of heating. Aesthetically, the combination of polished concrete and timber cladding (Douglas fir from certified sustainable forests) is a delight.

Suddenly, everyone seems to want a school place in Kensington. The school had 116 pupils taking GCSEs last summer, but now takes in 180 pupils a year, with 3,330 parents queuing up to get their children into it. The students attest to the fact that a building like this can bring academic benefits. "Our jaws dropped when we saw the new building," says Millie Fletcher, the school's first head girl. "It was hi-tech, like a modern office building. We knew we'd have to work hard in it!" Tom Bridson, a Year 8 pupil, was more succinct when he met Tony Blair at the official opening. "Not your average school, is it?" he said.

An environment for learning

KINGSMEAD PRIMARY, CHESHIRE

Opened in 2004 to serve a new housing development. Has a distinctive curved, wooden, north-facing arc at the core of its construction. Also has unheated buffer zones between classrooms and playground, used for play in wet weather and to minimise heat loss. The building's energy-management system can close windows when it rains, and draw blinds against the glare of the sun.

EASTCHURCH C OF E PRIMARY, ISLE OF SHEPPEY, KENT

Each class, from reception upwards, operates a recycling, energy and water-monitoring system, and activities have included energy-saving leaflets designed by pupils for local householders. School meals are cooked on the premises and favour local produce.

CASSOP PRIMARY, COUNTY DURHAM

Serving two villages in what was a mining community until the mid-Eighties. Has own recycling centre, solar panels, a wind turbine co-funded by the local council and the power company Northern Electric, plus a biomass boiler fuelled by pellets produced at a nearby landfill site.

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