Shailer Park SHS: Innovating Upstream for a Safer, Smarter Future
Our Vision in Action: Shailer Park SHS exemplifies Climate Action Schools' vision of "Redesigning Success: People and planet, thriving together," by fostering teamwork and innovation for a sustainable future. Principal Megan Herbert calls us a ‘critical support partner”.
Shailer Park SHS Vision/Values: Excellence in Learning and Life, Purpose – Inspiring lifelong learners to succeed in a world of opportunities.
The Challenge & Opportunity: Shailer Park SHS embarked on its Climate Action Schools journey with a strong commitment to sustainability but faced unique operational challenges, including ensuring cleaner safety and fostering cross-team collaboration for waste management. The opportunity was to innovate upstream and build a truly integrated system.
The Climate Action Schools Solution: CAS partnered with Shailer Park SHS to develop its Sustainability Skills Centre (SSC) and implement functional sustainability (LEAN) principles. A key focus was on empowering the cleaning and teaching teams to work together, identifying, and solving operational bottlenecks.
Key Achievements & Impact:
Team Bonding & Innovation: Teachers and cleaners worked together, fostering a strong team bond and driving upstream innovations to streamline resource recovery processes. This significantly increased cultural maturity amongst the team.
Safety First: The school prioritized and invested in essential equipment, such as a quality bin lifter, ensuring the safety of operational staff – a critical learning for all schools. They also bought a 4x4 with the funding and with aluminium donated from Oxworks (thanks people) they’ve built a trusty trailer to help with the 240l bins.
Strategic Funding: Secured a $50,000 grant (based on program data) to further develop the SSC and enhance safety and efficiency.
Industry Exposure: A professional development tour for teachers and cleaners into industry showcased sustainability in action, using functional LEAN tools, strengthening team engagement, and understanding.
Operational Readiness: Identified and implemented the specific requirements for a school to be truly "ready, willing, and able" to become a Climate Action School.
Functional Sustainability in Action: Shailer Park SHS demonstrated that functional sustainability is about more than just sorting; it's about continuous improvement, teamwork, and valuing every team member's contribution. They applied LEAN principles to innovate processes, ensuring safety and efficiency from the very start of the waste stream.
What's Next: Shailer Park SHS is now poised to fully operationalize its SSC, leveraging its grant funding and strong team collaboration to achieve significant waste reduction and cost savings, becoming a model for integrated school sustainability. Ineke just received top 6 Teachers of the Year Award nationally for this achievement. Congratulations Ineke!
Learn More: Discover how your school can foster teamwork and innovation for sustainability. [Link to Contact Page] | #ShailerParkSHS #ClimateActionSchools #UpstreamInnovation #Teamwork #SustainabilityLeadership