First we hear from the pupils in a speech given at the recent Social Enterprise Academy prize giving event in Edinburgh.
“In Geography this year we have been looking into the Geography of Clothes.
Did you know that making clothes contributes more to climate change than planes and ships combined?
And an average of one rubbish truck of clothes is wasted every second.
We decided as well as learning about the global impact of the fashion industry, we would also like to do something to take action around the issue, so we have set up Cearcal Clothes.
“Did you know that making clothes contributes more to climate change than planes and ships combined?”
The Circular economy
Cearcal Clothes is an Inverness High School social enterprise which takes in donated, secondhand school uniforms, cleans them up, re-packages them and then gives them back to the parents for pupils.
Why Cearcal Clothes I hear you ask? Well, Cearcal means circle in Gaelic and we believe in the circular economy. Rather than everything ending up in landfill, we can re-use stuff and give it a longer life.
In class we worked in groups to make sure our product would be up to standard. We have teams for quality control, laundry, ironing, packaging and promotion. Yes that’s right mum, I’ve been learning to iron!
“Cearcal means circle in Gaelic and we believe in the circular economy.”
Prize winning
Once we had turned enough donated school uniforms into new stock, it was time to do the selling. We have had pop-up shops at parents’ night, at Dalneigh Sports Day and even in Eastgate Centre, where we raised £50. Who knows where we will go with this in the future?
The Social Enterprise Academy heard what we were up to and have awarded us a prize. This involved us travelling down to Edinburgh to receive our prize at the Assembly Rooms. There were schools from all over Scotland but we were the only Highland school attending. We were able to tell people about our enterprise including the Minister for Education and the boss of The Big Issue. It was an interesting day out and fun too.”
“Pupils use a wide range of skills in running the business, working as a team and engaging with our wider community.”
Next up is Ben Sparham, Geography teacher at Inverness High School.
“As a teacher of twenty years, it wasn’t until working with my local Development Education Centre, that I came across the idea of a ‘Head; Hands; Heart’ approach. Whilst ‘knowledge banking’ is the stock and trade of secondary subject teachers, developing the skills, values and attitudes of pupils was always more challenging.
Fashionable Geography
In our ‘Fashionable Geography’ topic, one period a week is spent exploring the issues around clothes, environment and globalisation. In the other lesson of the week, we take in donated school uniforms and, using the principles of the circular economy, make them good again. Pupils use a wide range of skills in running the business, working as a team and engaging with our wider community. What’s more, they seem to enjoy it too.
There still seems to be considerable stigma around re-using clothing, but we found that including our local primary schools and their uniforms and focussing on the carbon savings rather than the financial savings, we were able to really engage our community. Pupils really enjoyed running pop up shops at parents’ nights, primary school sports days and even in the Eastgate Centre, amongst the big retailers.
By rotating the lesson set between S1 classes, the project is spread over half the academic year and everyone has a chance to participate.”
