We are committed to making sustainable, environmentally-friendly decisions which benefit our school community and set a good example for students.
Students can join our pro-active Eco Council in Junior School, or our Eco Committee in Senior School and Sixth Form. Supported by teachers, these students are driving change across our school community.
Eco-Schools Green Flag Award
In 2022, St Mary's was awarded an Eco-Schools Green Flag Award, with distinction. This reflected the hard work of our Eco Committee who have identified areas for action, to build on our existing environmental activity. The Awards body commented:
"It was wonderful to see how completing your Environmental Review helped your Eco-Committee to spot gaps in your school's existing environmental activity. But equally important is that it helped you to recognise the great work that you were already doing. This helps to keep up the good activity whilst making you feel empowered to do different things. We love this!
Your Action Plan was concise, SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound) and clearly influenced by your environmental review. This is a great example of self-reflective practice, research-led planning and critical thinking. Good work! You should all be very proud of your work and the application you have submitted!"
Here are some examples of our recent sustainability initiatives:
- Raising awareness of plastic waste in the oceans
- Minimising waste through the introduction of the ReWorked scheme to collect unrecyclable materials to repurpose them into new products
- Litter picking in the local community
- Participating in the Big Plastic Count
- Eco-Wednesdays full of fun, eco-related activities to raise awareness and inspire action
- Minimising food waste in our canteen
- Increasing digital tech and increasing recycling for paper waste
- Replacing food packaging with compostable alternatives
- Transitioning to digital marketing materials and eco-friendly printed materials
- Increasing biodiversity on our school grounds through bee-friendly planting schemes and adding new trees as part of the Woodland Trust’s Big Climate Fightback project and promoting the use of insect and solitary bee boxes
We also encourage students to travel to school using public transport or by bicycle.
Cycling to school
Cambridge is a city famous for its love of cycling and at St Mary’s we are enthusiastic about encouraging our students to cycle.
Annual Bikeability sessions to encourage girls to develop road awareness, helping them to travel safely by bike. We have bicycle parks at Junior School, Senior School and Sixth Form and are members of the Travel for Cambridgeshire scheme which offers discounts at various bicycle shops.
In addition, we have negotiated a 10% discount for all repairs with Lensfield Road Cycles (please provide proof your daughter attends St Mary's School when arranging your repair).
Public transport
Our free St Mary’s Minibus service encourages girls to choose this option for getting to and from school. We have introduced new routes, serving all three Park and Ride sites around Cambridge. This service helps to:
- Reduce the number of vehicles and the associated pollution and conjestion at drop-off and pick-up
- Free-up busy parents from the daily school run!
We are located close to Cambridge Train Station, making rail travel a sensible option for older girls. As members the Cambridgeshire Student Connect scheme our Sixth Form students benefit from a 50% discount on rail fares.
Our location