Chiswick's William Hogarth School was commended by the Mayor of London Ken Livingstone this week for being green and environmentally friendly.

The local primary school won a highly commended award of £1000 for their work for the local environment, as part of the London Schools Environment Awards.

Steve Backshall the adventurer & Natural History presenter of Children’s BBC TV’s Really Wild Show and Sky One’s Inside the King Cobra hosted the awards ceremony.

The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone said ‘Water is a precious resource that everyone has a responsibility to conserve so I’m pleased to see that schools which have been taking part in the London Schools Environment awards have learnt more about water conservation this year. I really want to commend the hard work of the children and teachers who have got involved with the awards this year particularly The William Hogarth School who submitted outstanding work.

‘These awards are helping children to learn about looking after the environment, to tell their parents how they can live a cleaner and greener lifestyle and crucially helping the next generation of Londoners to live a healthier lifestyle as they grow up.’

Over 240,000 children from 701 primary schools registered for the scheme this year. A distinction award of £2000 and a highly commended award of £1000 were presented to two schools in each of the participating London boroughs.

Schools signed up to the scheme did a variety of projects to learn about the environment. In one school, children created a bin specifically for their waste fruit, which was used for compost in the school garden. Another school monitored their rubbish to make sure that nothing that could be recycled was being sent to landfill. Another class designed posters for classrooms reminding children and teachers to save energy and switch off lights. Other schools created nature gardens and vegetable patches, one school started planting woodland in their nature garden.

July 6, 2006