Sustainability

Newham Primary School Energy Audits

Last week Newham Primary School students completed energy audits of lighting, temperatures and appliances within the school. We are preparing for re-certification of our ResourceSmart energy module and needed to audit the current status of the school's energy consumption.

The F1 class took the ambient temperature of each classroom from Monday to Friday. Their teacher, Sharny Smith entered their data onto an Excel spreadsheet so the students could see the variation across rooms and the day of the week. The students were able to discuss elements that affected temperatures such as heating and outdoor ambient temperature.

The 234 class audited our appliances to see what star rating they had, whether they are left on standby (consuming power), and at what temperature thermostats for heating are set. Their collected data will be analysed and used to inform future improvements for energy savings.

The 456 students used a Lux meter to take readings of artificial and natural light in all the rooms in the school. The results haven't been analysed as yet but with our new lights, we are expecting  the lighting for different areas meets benchmark ranges, as data collected for past audits has placed our school as meeting benchmarks.

The 456 class also used the electricity usage reports that were accessed from the ResourceSmart Schools website, based on the bills we enter for each month. With their teacher, Rai Jones, they analysed the reports with wonderings and noticings, and discussed what may have impacted spikes in energy usage. Here are their noticings for electricity usgae from 2015 to 2024.

The students were able to draw connections between data showing spikes due to having the heaters up at high temperatures in cooler months in 2023, and then less usage due to lower heating temperatures in 2024 as a result of dressing for the weather. They were able to see the impact of something as simple as the temperature of heaters and how often they used on electricity consumption.

After all the data from the audits is analysed, the school with develop and implement an energy action plan for the next four years to continue to reduce our energy usage. The action plan will be published in our next newsletter.