St Columba's scoops up 2 awards at prestigious ResourceSmart School Awards!

St Columba's has taken home not one but two awards at this year's 2020 ResourceSmart School Awards Victoria's largest sustainability awards program for schools!

Our fabulous Steph Young was the well deserving winner of the Teacher of the Year (Primary) and our wonderful Green Team were crowned School Community Volunteer of the Year.

The Awards recognise and reward the outstanding sustainability efforts of Victorian primary and secondary schools that contribute to a better place and we are incredibly proud of Steph and the Green Team for their amazing efforts.

Steph has played a pivotal role in St Columba's establishing itself as a leading 5-star school championing sustainability in the school, mentoring our student environmental leaders, promoting our schools achievements and leading engagement with the school and the broader community. Steph oversees initiatives such as our STEAM Clean the Bay program, our popular Climate Change Choir, our Take 3 for the Sea clean up initiatives and our kitchen garden classroom. She has also been instrumental in minimising our landfill waste, encouraging nude food for students and staff and recycling or reusing items in classrooms.

St Columba's Green Team was formed in 2014 and consists of a group of passionate parents, volunteering their time to contribute to our school's sustainability efforts. The team has raised over $100K for energy and waste retrofits and environmental education in our school over the last 5 years, and in 2018/19 volunteered approximately 700 hours of their time!  Our school simply wouldn't be a 5-star school without them.

This year for the first time the awards ceremony were held online, allowing our Preps, Year 1s and Year 2s to all watch from school and our Year 3-6s to tune in from home and cheer on our winners!

Congratulations Steph and the Green Team for this fantastic achievement!