Action at School is an environmental school programme, endorsed by the UNEP, that lasts 6-9 months in each school.  The programme engages students in environmental learning that helps schools to save money and to improve their environmental performance.  Global Action Plan supports a volunteer team, helping them to measure their school’s environmental impact, set improvement targets, communicate effectively and build partnerships with local community organisations. Students come up with imaginative solutions and lead the way in implementing them.

Action at School promotes education and training as:

• young people work in teams to design and implement their own plan of action, they learn how to run an information campaign; measure the results of their efforts, develop communications and management skills and contribute to their schools and wider society;
• young people gain a concrete understanding of an element of key stages three and four on the citizenship curriculum whilst learning about personal responsibility and their impact on the environment;
• participants are acknowledged by their school and community and also receive a United Nations Environment Programme certificate.

Action at School helps young people to achieve their full potential by:

• providing young people with the chance to volunteer and learn to teamwork with students of different ages within the school environment;
• enabling young people to take control of their actions and contribute to their school's business plan – their achievement of an average reduction in waste to landfill of 41% and energy use by 10% means that their action plans often become part of the schools environmental management systems.

In each school, Action at School involves the following stages:

1. Planning – Global Action Plan meets with the appropriate teachers and ensures that the school is committed to the initiative
2. Recruitment – Global Action Plan advises the lead teacher on recruitment, ensuring a mixture of student abilities and ages from across the school.
3. Training Day – Global Action Plan runs a training day for up to 25 volunteer students and a lead teacher.  This fun and interactive session explains the environmental issue, the importance of taking action as well as the audit process.
4. 1st Audit – Global Action Plan supports the volunteer team of students to carry out an audit of the environmental performance of their school by carrying out spotchecks, surveying other students, reading meters and weighing waste.
5. Action Planning Workshop – Once students have carried out their first audit they are familiar with the problem areas.  Global Action Plan encourages students to come up with ideas to change behaviours and tackle problem areas.
6. Campaign (with regular campaign meetings) – Global Action Plan supports and helps the student volunteer team to implement their action plans.
7. 2nd Audit – Global Action Plan helps the volunteer team of students to repeat their initial audit.
8. Celebration – Once the environmental savings have been calculated, the volunteer students hold a celebration event where they are awarded with their UN Environment Programme certificates to recognise their achievements.

Action at School – Food Module
Global Action Plan will produce an interactive online version of Action at School based around the topic of food, incorporating lesson plans, teaching resources, games and classroom activities to encourage action

The food module will raise awareness about healthy eating, nutrition and the links with the environment.  It will enable young people to reduce waste to landfill in their schools, improve their diet as well as gaining Healthy Schools status. 

The food module will include:

• An overview of food including the environmental impact of food as well as food in schools
• The training day (with lessons plans and classroom activities)
• The audit process (with investigation tasks)
• Running a behaviour change campaign
• Curriculum links
• Web links / useful resources

The food module will be supported by a gardening pack.  The gardening pack will involve:

• A month-by-month fact sheet including what can be sown, transplanted and harvested;
• Ideas for additional activities;
• How to build a compost heap;
• Top tips on starting and running a successful gardening club