Hucknall Flying High Academy children highlight water pollution issues and ask local residents to join petition

Children from Hucknall Flying High Academy have been learning all about rivers in their Geography lessons and it has prompted children to demonstrate in Hucknall town centre, seeking action for cleaner rivers in England and Wales.

Debbie Newton is Year 4 Teacher and she said, “The driver for our enquiry is Geography and part of that has been learning all about rivers, not only where the rivers are but the terminology used to describe them. As part of the learning, we have discovered facts like 0% of rivers in England and Wales are considered to be clean.

“This has been taken to heart by our pupils and we decided that we would like to raise awareness of the issue with the people of Hucknall and see if we could gather support for a petition which we can pass to our local MP to seek change.”

Pupil Nancy Nwokoloh age 8 said “We really hope people will help us. We are trying to stop sewage pollution because CSO’s (Combined sewer overflows) are putting too much sewage into our rivers. People are listening to us and lots of people have stopped and signed our petition. We can then go to our local MP and try to stop this.”

Pupil Amaya Kooner age 9 was taking signatures from members of the public. “We have some leaflets to help people to learn about the effects of pollution and how river pollution is happening. Some pollution is killing the fish and polluting our food as well as harming the animals who eat the fish from the rivers.  No rivers either in England or Wales are in good health, and so I hope people will help us to stop dumping sewage into rivers.”

Debbie Newton said, “We hope that the people we meet today become aware of the issue and play their role in trying to help too. As a school we visited Carsington Water and learnt that people put all kinds of things into the toilet system that shouldn’t be flushed, and this can cause lots of problems.

“Our children are passionate about the environment and 3 of our school children are COP 26 ambassadors, the voice speaking on behalf of our environment. The children have created boards at home and have spoken to their families about the issues. They were a little anxious about talking to people to begin with, but they are doing great work now. We are so proud of the way they are trying to make a difference and protect the environment.”