Best Practice: Lycée Hubert Clément

1. Separating and recycling waste at school

The practice started in schoolyear 2005-2006 and has been carried out in schoolyear 2006-2007
A fifth-year science class (3eBC1)

The aim of this practice was to make students aware of and respect their immediate environment, i.e. the school-building and school-yard by producing less waste and by separating and recycling it. After asking their schoolmates, through a questionnaire, if they were willing to contribute to this project, the students of class 3eBC1 wrote to the Luxembourg recycling-firm VALORLUX asking them to put different waste-bins at their disposal for all the classrooms, the common rooms, the entrance halls and the school-yards. The firm made a daily analysis of the waste produced at our school over a week and the result of this analysis made us decide which bins we needed. VALORLUX has agreed to contribute to a large extent to the financing of the different bins.

The Town Council was asked to collect our separated waste regularly and they have also agreed to doing this.
The whole project was presented to the press in a conference, where all the major newspapers and also a local students' television station were present.

Two students and a teacher of the class went to Paris in October 2006 to present the project at an international conference.

At the moment we are waiting for the ordered bins to be delivered. When they arrive, the students of class 3eBC1 will go to the different classes again and inform their colleagues about how to use the bins effectively. At the same time, an exhibition by VALORLUX will be presented at our school to give further information about recycling.

Most of the work of year 2005-2006 was done during the mathematics and English classes, but in 2006-2007, the work was not linked to the curriculum of any subject.

Evaluation
Generally the work which was done by the students (working out the questionnaire, evaluating the answers, writing letters to the different partners, etc) went quite well. When it came to realizing the plans, this took much more time, as local authorities had to be contacted, national and international firms had to be involved, price comparisons had to be made, bins had to be ordered, etc.
And this is always very time-consuming.

Is this best practice transferable to other schools?
It definitely is. Every school can do something for its direct environment. And the students are quite easily persuaded by such a practice as they can see its result every day.

2. An instructive walking path on the 'Galgenberg'

School-year 2006-2007
Students of different fifth-year classes (optional course)

In order to promote the respect for our forests and make the students, but also everybody else, aware of the beauty of Nature and the need to preserve it, 20 students of an optional course, together with their biology teacher, decided to create an instructive walking path on the 'Galgenberg', a hill just outside our city, covered by a beautiful park and forest.

In groups of four they prepared texts about the flora and fauna which will be put on signposts along a trail chosen by the students and their teacher together with the forest warden. These texts give information about the environment, but also make the walkers test their knowledge about animals and plants.

To realize their project, the students had to work together with the Town Council, the technical service of the Town, the forest warden and a firm making their signposts.

The local branch of the "Rotary Club" contributes to the financing of this project, which everybody who takes a walk on the 'Galgenberg' can profit from.

Evaluation
The planning and preparation of the texts at school went quite well, as the students could do all this work regularly at school (2 hours a week).
It naturally became more difficult when the 'technical' phase started and the teacher had to direct most of this.

Is this best practice transferable to other schools?
It is surely transferable to other schools which have forests in their vicinity. They would of course have to adapt everything to their particular environment.
But it is surely worthwhile trying and very rewarding for the students to see their work put up in Nature for everybody to look at and learn from.
3. 'Chacun est seul responsable de tous'
This is the title of our school charter, which was finalized during the first 2 terms of this school year.

During the school-year of 2005-2006 our school had decided to give itself a charter, defining the rights and duties of teachers, students and parents and thus helping to guarantee a good co-operation among these 3 groups. Each group was asked to make a list of their ideas and present it to the other 2 groups. The students being the largest of these groups had great difficulty in making this list, so that it was mainly the parents and the teachers working together. In several meetings these 2 groups worked out a common text which was presented to and accepted by the students. This final version exists in French and in Luxembourgish.

At the end of the second term, this school charter was finally presented to the public in an official ceremony which the press had also been invited to.

The full version of the school charter was sent to each student with the school report and an abridged version will be put up in each classroom. Every student who is newly admitted t our school will be given a copy of this charter, which will also appear in each publication at the beginning of the new school-year.

Evaluation
The work that was done by the small groups (parents and teachers) went well, but the students found it very hard to co-operate. Maybe they should have been a little bit more assisted in their work.

This practice is surely transferable to other schools, but we would recommend them to give a bit more guidance to the students that we did.