Osbaston CIW School

Osbaston CIW School in Monmouthshire is the first school in Wales to achieve the Deforestation Free Champions Award.

After learning all about forest-risk commodities, their impacts and solutions, and investigating their school menu, students at Osbaston used their voices to call for change and inspire others. This included:

• Inviting the Deputy Minister for Climate Change, Lee Waters, to their school where they shared information about tropical deforestation and the urgency in tackling it.  Local and national media were also invited and the school children delivered media interviews. 
• Inviting councillors from the People and Places Committee of the local Town Council? to attend a presentation on deforestation and getting commitment from the Council to help them with influencing local and global businesses in relation to forest-risk commodities. The Town Council committed to becoming a ‘deforestation free town council’.  Size of Wales is now exploring what this means in reality. 
• Presenting their findings at Monmouthshire County Council Chamber and urging councillors to include deforestation free criteria in their procurement policy. This resulted in a commitment from the Council to sign up to become a Deforestation Free Champion. (Size of Wales is now working with the Council on this).
• Working with the Cookalong Club to redesign and reformulate a chicken korma dish into a climate-friendly chickpea korma, which has been shared by students at local events.
• Putting on their own version of a Size of Wales workshop, which aimed to inform younger students about deforestation and forest-risk commodities and solutions.
• Cooking with and inspiring younger students, with the help of the Cookalong Club, to swap out forest-risk ingredients in favour of more climate-friendly options.
• Visiting Regen Ben’s farm, Townsend Farm, in the Wye Valley, to  learn about regenerative agriculture and how the farm was able to remove soy animal feed from their farming practice.
• Taking their message to the local community by engaging with local community groups. For example:
  • ‘Action on the Climate Emergency’ – a community based climate change group who invited the students to present on tropical deforestation at their local climate festival.  
  • The local carnival, dressing as an entire rainforest and winning first prize.