Students at Sturminster Newton High School have won a national prize after restarting their Eco Group.

The pupils’ green initiatives rather ground to a halt after the group leader retired and then covid got in the way.

But then they spotted the Surfers Against Sewage WUKA competition and became inspired to start up again.

The competition invited schools to undertake a number of measures to become more environmentally friendly.

They registered with Plastic Free Schools – Surfers Against Sewage and started going through all the resources and tasks on its website, to become a Plastic Free School.

Although changes had already made around the school to become more environmentally friendly (no more laminating of resources, recycling of stationary, crisp packets, milk bottle lids, no more plastic cutlery being used in the canteen…) when they entered the competition things went full steam ahead.

Their prize was a pair of period pants for each girl, which they won by writing ‘incredibly strong’ letters to the government about them being taxed as ‘non-essential’. Surfers Against Sewage education manager Emily van de Geer said “We were so impressed with all the entries but our winners, Sturminster Newton High School, put together two incredibly strong letters to government on removing the tax from period pants and on the amount of single-use plastics in schools across the UK. We particularly loved the pupils’ incredibly powerful poem and we hope they recognise just how powerful their voices are in helping to drive this necessary change.”