CHILDREN at Crediton’s Hayward’s Primary School have been learning how to make a difference in the world by being more sustainable and environmentally responsible.

Sustainability was the theme for its Hero Day last year and specialist guest speakers were welcomed into the school to talk to each class.

The speakers were Matt Hulland, Material Reclamation Facility Manager, Exeter City Council; Paul Pendray, Exeter City Council; Sally Jackson, Resources Futures; Alex Mack, Resources Futures; Sarah Martin, Nourish Tospham; Fatma Sabet, Shillingford Organics Farm School and Catherine Causley, Reuse Project Officer, Devon County Council.

Mr Hulland, whose children go to Hayward’s Primary School, said: "Mr Smith, head teacher, has a vision for Hayward’s in regards to sustainability such as waste reduction and education, renewable energy usage and environmental responsibility and is now a Mid Devon Flagship school as part of the W.A.S.P. programme (Waste Action Support Programme) being supported by Resource Futures."

He added: "It was wonderful to be invited by Mr Smith to talk to the children about sustainability and how each and every one of us can make a difference.

"We managed to capture a real wide range of experts from many areas of sustainability such as Organic foods and food waste minimisation to sustainable alternatives to single use plastics and marine pollution.

"To have that number of experts in one school sharing their knowledge and experience with us is as yet unheard of around Devon schools, it was a real success for which I was very grateful to be involved with and so grateful for everyone’s time."

Mr Hulland continued: "The children have a fun interactive day learning all about things like, where their recycling goes, what happens to it and choices they can make regarding reduce, reuse and recycle.

"They also learned about refill shops and alternatives, marine pollution and wildlife, how to reuse or repair things to name a few!

"The children really liked it and were really engaging and full of amazing ideas about what they can do to make a difference to their environment."

One of the challenges the children took part in during the day was to make the Owl from the Hayward’s logo from bottle tops.