Involve your school
Form an Action Group
Why do we need an Action Group?
The Water Action Group will be the driving force for changing the school’s water use and will communicate what needs to be done, what has been done and what effect those changes have made.
The School Council could form the basis of your Action Group.
Who should sit on the Action Group?
Pupils and teachers should be included in the water Action Group.
The Action Group will be most effective if there is a representative on the group for each of the principle stakeholders. A school’s stakeholders are likely to include: pupils, the headteacher or member of the senior management team, the bursar, teachers, a governor, a parent, a non-teaching member of staff and a caretaker or site manager. Can you think of any more people who might want to be involved?
The role of the Action Group
The first thing to do when you set up the group is to set your aims and objectives (e.g. to reduce our school's water use). Please see below for some suggestions:
- Calculate your school's Annual Water Use
- Set an annual water saving target
- Carry out Water Use surveys
- Develop and implement your Create a Water Action Plan
- Take your Water Action Plan recommendations to you school's management team on the options to take and implement them
- Regularly monitor and interpret your school's water use using meter readings or bills
- Raise awareness and promote water saving activities in your school
- Ensure that the whole school knows about how and why you are saving water
- Communicate with the local community
- Ensure the above process is repeated every year
See the Average Daily Usage information sheets for a worked example of this calculation, using readings and bills.
A chair will be needed for each meeting. The chair will set the agenda before each meeting and make sure that the attendees keep to the agenda and to the times set out. You will need to consult with the rest of the group to make sure that you cover everything that each of the members want to discuss in the agenda.
Consider rotating the chair so that everyone on the Action Group gets a turn.
One member of the group will need to take the minutes of the meeting. They will need to inform the reader who was there, what was said, what was agreed, what actions are required, who will do the actions and when they will be done by. They give an overview of the structure of the meeting, starting with a list of those present, a statement of the various issues before the participants, and each of their opinions and the actions that need to be taken before the next meeting.
If you are working towards Eco-schools initiative, the Water Action Groups minutes can be used to support your application.