School workshops on retrofit at four schools in Lambeth

In the 2023 summer term, we ran engagement workshops across four schools in Lambeth, connecting students and teachers to retrofit works carried out at their school through PSDS funding

Four students stand and sit behind a wooden finish table inside a classroom. They are all smiling! On the table in front of them is their insulated house for a baked potato, decorated with badges and drawings and made from a cardboard box.

The workshop programme was split into four sessions delivered at each school:

Getting to Know Your School
Retrofit Essentials
School Eco Systems
Zero Carbon Action

The aim of these themes was to give students an understanding of sustainability and retrofit in architecture, in a way that they can easily relate to in their own school environment, and start to understand actions that they can take individually and collectively at home to address the social and climate issues discussed throughout.

Primary school students stand outside on artificial grass, holding up banners and signs that they have made sharing their ambitions for a sustainable future. The signs read things like “Reuse and recycle, reduce CO2, protect and plant, save the seas”

Students made posters about retrofit measures in their own school, after looking around the school building with the workshop leaders, teachers and premises managers.

A group of students sit in a circle on a blue carpet floor, around a drawing they have made on a pink A3 sheet of sugar paper. The drawing explains retrofit principles such as insulation, triple glazing and solar gains.

To communicate the concepts of insulating homes, students made a “home” for a hot baked potato, which they insulated to see how long it could retain heat. Using a thermal camera to analyse the results, they started to understand concepts like thermal bridging which they can then relate back to their own school and homes.

Two students sit behind a wooden table, applying sticky tape to a cardboard box in front of them. There are computer screens behind them, and a blue and green sheet of paper on the table.

One of RAFT’s architectural assistants, Nada, spoke to students about her journey in architecture and what she has learned throughout the process and possible career options for the students.

An image taken from the back of a classroom, facing toward a large digital screen. Students are watching Nada, an architect at RAFT, on the screen, who is talking about her career within architecture.

Often, when building or retrofit works are carried out at a school, organisation, or community, it can feel like it is happening to them and/or without them. We frequently see the results of this, with students, staff and premises managers unaware of exactly what works have been carried out, with equipment not working correctly, with no effective handover.

Through engaging with premises managers and students in workshops, the whole school community can start to be more involved with the retrofit process. Ideally a measure of how well RAFT runs engagement programmes, will be how little further engagement schools need with us, because we will have shared knowledge and built networks between schools that will continue that process - we’re still working on that!

Students stand in a school plantroom listening to the premises manager talk to them about the plant and how everything works!

A collage of student work from the school workshops that is layered on top of each other. The top image is the drawing by the students explaining key retrofit principles on an A3 pink sugar paper sheet.

School workshops on retrofit at four schools in Lambeth

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Southwark Diocese School Heat Decarbonisation Plans