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Hackney's Sustainable Superstars: Sandra McLeod

Writer's picture: Chesca WaltonChesca Walton

Portrait of Sandra McLeod
Portrait of Sandra McLeod


Sandra is a retired primary school teacher who taught and inspired pupils about the natural world over almost three decades in the great, hugely diverse London Borough of Hackney; firstly, at Shacklewell PS, then at Whitmore PS, which has become Shoreditch Park PS.

 

Right from the start of her professional life, she had decided the natural world should be part of the primary schools’ curriculum.

 

Sandra is an award-winning volunteer assessor for the free Eco-Schools programme – a programme aiming to encourage schools to sign up to become members of the Eco-Schools programme, “empowering young people to make a difference in their school, local community and beyond […], to consider environmental changes that they can make in their school and everyday lives.”

 

She is hugely engaged in promoting Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), which aims to connect research in sustainable development and educational practice. In 2004 she played a leading role in a WWF-led ESD case study at her Shacklewell PS, exploring the purpose, difficulties and benefits of an ESD focus in an inner-city primary school. She co-wrote the “Description of involving an inner city [sic] school and Multicultural Local Community in a national ESD project” . The project’s gardening component she developed with her pupils continued to be included in the school’s curriculum.

 

Proving her commitment to fight for social justice and also for farming communities of the Global Majority, Sandra is a highly committed promoter of Fairtrade goods – setting up stands at events like Hackney’s Sustainability Days and during Sustainable Hackney’s Film for Action evenings.

 

After her retirement, in 2015, together with Merle White, she set up Sustainable Hackney's ‘Education for Sustainability Network’.

 

Written by Reiner Tegtmeyer

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