This is the Decarbonisation Dialogue, a podcast
from Salix. Welcome to Delivering on Climate
Change, our collective challenge. I am Hannah
Walker and I believe that the best way to communicate
a message is by being passionate about what you
are talking about. Through that passion, I believe
you take people with you and create action using
your influence to make change and make a difference.
Our task today is to get all of us to net zero.
Today, I'm delighted to have with us for our
decarbonisation dialogue podcast, we have Giles
Coulter and Gary Dimmock. Giles is head teacher
of St Peter's School, Calfold, Sussex, and Gary
is the premises manager there. The school was
recently awarded and successfully completed a
public sector decarbonisation scheme project.
being awarded money from the government, which
has been delivered by our teams at Salix, with
other funding from the Diocese of Chichester.
And I can't wait to talk about this because I
visited the project myself and just was so impressed
by the enthusiasm of not just the team, but of
all the children and how you've involved the
children in all of that work at the school. So
it's fantastic to have Giles and Gary with us
today. Hi, Hannah. So starting with the top question,
please. Could you please tell us about your background?
So Giles, teaching. Why teaching? I actually
was interested in geography and I did a geography
degree at King's College in London. And I guess
that's where. My sort of rudimentary awareness
of climate change and the importance of making
sure we make carbon savings comes from. And then,
in fact, I was going to be a geography teacher,
but I think being a primary teacher was always
in my blood because my mum's a primary teacher.
And when it actually came to signing up for the
PGCE. I switched over and went for primary and
I just loved it. So never really looked back
after that. Yeah. Superb. Can I ask how many
years have you been in teaching now? So I've
been in teaching about 32 years. Yeah. I started
teaching in 1992. Yeah. Fantastic. I can't wait
to hear about all of the changes that you must
have seen as well during that period. Gary, tell
us about your background, because you've had
quite a varied background, haven't you? Certainly,
I read physics and astrophysics at Queen Elizabeth
College, London, and I attempted to get into
astronomy and astrophysics as a career, but it's
a fairly specialised and not very many places
available. So what I ended up doing actually
was getting into computing because astronomy
and astrophysics actually require a lot of computing
ability. So I did computing courses as a part
of the degree and I ended up becoming employed
across practically every sphere of computing
in my time. and have talked around the world
a number of times as a consequence of that. But
I was made redundant a couple of times through
my career. And the last time I was looking around
and thinking, do I really want to get back into
the rat race of full employment, et cetera? And
I looked for other alternatives, one of which
was as the premises manager, premises officer
for the school. So that was effectively how I
came to be part and parcel of the community here
and working at St Peter's Primary School. I believe
you've got a personal connection to the school.
Did your children go to St Peter's? Yes, when
I was at university, I met my wife when she was
16. We were both in sixth form at Maidstone.
And she went to, she did her teacher's certificate
down at Brighton. And one of the places that
she did her teaching practice was actually Calfold.
We subsequently got married. We lived originally
over in East Sussex. And then I got a job at
Haywood Seath and we moved to Calfold. Then our
three daughters have both been through St Peter's
Primary in Calfold. My wife taught there as well
as other local village schools around the area.
So a very strong connection to St Peter's, which
is just a beautiful school on a beautiful site.
And we're going to talk about the technologies
you've installed because you are very careful
to take into account your neighbours as well,
which is very important in that kind of tight
knit community. So, Giles. Can we go back to
the school and can you please tell us about St
Peter's and the community that you serve there?
Yeah, we are quite a small village primary school
and we predominantly serve Calfold Village. We're
a church school, Church of England school, and
the school was originally founded by the Church
of England. So it's got that long tradition.
It was founded in the 1870s and part of the building
is, you know, still the original Victorian school
building. complex when the project came along
in terms of insulation and things. And Calfold
is an interesting village. It's got a real rural
connection, as you'd expect, being in Sussex.
quite a few families who are farming families.
And in fact, the land right next to our school,
there's a field and it belongs to a family who've
got two children in the school right now. So
we've got that tradition. But also being in the
busy southeast, not far from Gatwick, quite close
to the A24 and the A23. It's also a commuter
village, really, Calfold. And a lot of people
work in London or Crawley or Gatwick and Brighton
and commute by car. And I would say it's actually
quite a working village, really, Calfold. affordable
housing uh uh as well as you know some some large
properties um it's got a good share of social
housing so um we actually it creates a nice diverse
community uh we're quite close -knit community
as well actually not that many villages and places
some places that kind of merge quite closely
into other villages and things but californ does
stand alone so there's I think the village has
got a real sense of identity and it's got some
sort of markable buildings and a history. In
fact, there's a Calfold History Society, which
have been involved with the school. We've got
interesting things like St Peter's Church and
the Village Hall, which is a Victorian building.
And those sort of buildings create real hubs
in the village. um as well as the new almond
center which is a community hub as well um and
a lot goes on people people do a lot in the village
um around the church and also around their own
sort of um around the village hall and things
go on there and i think gary probably can add
a little bit more about that because he actually
lives in the village but you know having been
working here for over 10 years you get a sense
of identity that you know california is quite
a close -knit place yeah Thank you. And we are
going to talk a lot more about the challenges
that you face as well at that school and dealing
with climate change, because that's really what
we want to get to. But Gary, you've recently
installed. a ground source heat pump at the school.
Okay, so you receive the school was lucky enough
to receive funding from the public sector decarbonisation
scheme, which is a huge scheme impacting projects
across the country. You're a small school, I
think you've got about 100, is it just over 100
children? It's a relatively small primary school,
but hugely successful in receiving this funding,
which I think was about 670. Okay, worth the
funding. I'm sure you'll correct me. Can you
just tell us a little bit about the process of
that? Because I've seen it, it's a huge project,
a lot of work. Gary, can you tell us a little
bit about that process? Yes, quite a scary process,
to say the least. We had two ancient oil boilers
that needed to be replaced. They dated back to
sort of 1960s, pre -Berlin Wall falling down.
And we were looking at what options we had available.
One of those, obviously, was for the funding
for the ground source heat pumps. In order to
achieve that, we had to put in a bid through
Salix for the government funding, but that actually
required a lot of technical detail, which ordinarily
a small school, any school, won't have any of
the knowledge available. So we went out to one
or two consultants initially. give us some information
whether we should be looking at simple replacement
oil boilers like for like, whether we should
be looking at air source heat pumps, ground source
heat pumps, or what alternatives there might
be. We were very keen right from the start to
really try and put something in that was environmentally
friendly. But it really boiled down to the funding.
At the end of the day, it was touch and go. Applied
for the government funding, we had to produce,
as I say, a massive technical document, well,
several massive technical documents, not least
of which was the proposed system and its capabilities,
etc. And we then... waited a little while before
we were told we had that funding. But even then,
because that application, we're talking about
a sort of six -month -plus process, and the bid
that we put in was for funding that we had understood
the level of cost according to our consultants
and the manufacturers and everything else like
that. But, of course, by the time we got the
funding agreed, by the time we were actually...
We had to then obviously go through the whole
process of going out to tender, getting the organizations,
the companies in to be able to produce that tender
information. We're talking about nine months
elapsed, by which time everything had gone up
so dramatically in cost that we initially didn't
have enough money to be able to do the ground
source heat pumps. We were looking at either...
cutting it back and putting in air source heat
pumps, which are by no means anywhere near as
efficient, or as we ultimately did, cutting back
on any of the little extras that we were potentially
hoping to be able to achieve in order to reduce
that requirement to the level of funding that
we were actually getting from the government
and the diocese. So it wasn't until... probably
about April so the we started in about May June
of whatever year it was I've lost track of the
years now it's 23 wasn't it when we the very
initial start yeah yeah and it wasn't until around
April of 24 that we actually were able to engage
our consultant project manager and the building
companies etc and i i think when i visited the
school i've seen it you've got it so you you've
got it you've got the i've seen the channel in
the ground i've seen the the marks if you like
um and the you they go it goes straight and through
the front doesn't the channel goes straight through
the front door through the reception and then
you showed us the uh cupboard where you have
all the controls And in terms of learning, then,
what are the kind of biggest learnings that you've
had? Because you did a lot of the work during
the holidays, but the children were very much
aware of it, weren't they? Yes, absolutely. I
mean, it was a massive project. The total funding
was nigh on a million pounds. And that required
digging 15 boreholes into the playing field,
each 100 metres deep. So we had to have pile
drivers come onto the site, bashing the piles
down into the ground, as well as obviously digging
up all the playground, etc. So it was a question
of what potential impact would that be? Again,
we are a small community. There are houses around
the playing field that we have to be very careful.
Careful that we don't upset anybody around. We
had to ensure that all of the permissions obviously
were in place because whilst we're a Church of
England school, the church building itself is
owned by the diocese, but the playing field is
owned by West Sussex County Council. So we had
to get their agreement to be able to put the
ground source elements into the playing field
as well as... assorted other permissions etc
we had to increase the power uh electricity that
supply to the school so we had to work with uh
npower to be able to achieve that because again
the ground source heat pump equipment has to
use electricity to power it in order to be able
to extract the heat from the ground and convert
it into the hot water for the central heating
etc and our power supply to the school was already
if you like at capacity so we had to improve
that and that again there was a additional cost
involved in order to achieve that and then The
disruption to the school itself, obviously, one
of the things that is a necessity where the heat
pumps are concerned is that you lose as little
heat from the building as possible. So we had
a 19, well, part Victorian, part 1960s, 70s buildings.
not desperately well insulated in any shape or
form. So we spent as much, if not slightly more,
on improving the insulation across the building
as we did on the heat pumps itself. So it was
a massive approach. Had to have scaffolding around
the entire school. The roof had to be completely
replaced with... lovely thick insulated roofing
across the entire school and of course all of
which has an impact not only on the wider community
with all of the building works that are going
on the traffic etc but particularly on the school
and the running of the school because all of
that work could not be achieved in the holiday
times so It was necessary to ensure that what
work that was being done in the term times was
as limited and as impactless. Of course, there
are very specific challenges, aren't there, always
when working with schools and around the term
times and the busy schedule. And they've just
got to get on with learning and you've got to
get on with teaching. And then you've got contractors
presumably in and out of the building. And it's
very interesting to hear how you navigated all
of those relationships, because it really is
quite complex. It's not just the neighbours,
as you say, it's talking to power companies.
contractors, et cetera, and having a playing
field that was owned by a different authority.
So really interesting. Now, we talk every day
at Salix. Our work is to try and get organisations,
whether it's public sector, whether it's housing
associations, because we have housing projects
as well, to get everybody to these net zero targets
that we've set. I'm going to go to Giles now.
We're looking at massive challenges in climate
change, you know, inequality. We're looking at
pandemics. We're seeing it on our news every
day, whether it's flooding, fires, et cetera,
resource pressures. Do you think we're doing
enough generally? You've done a huge project
there at St Peter's, but do you think we've done
enough or do you think people have kind of given
up? I don't think that people have given up.
and also it's obviously very hard to generalise
about different people's views. It doesn't seem
like we're doing enough, does it, really, from
what we hear. But I think, obviously, it's different
scales where you look at it. The children, and
we'll go on to talk about them, you know, they
haven't given up. There's a limitless passion
there from them. I think governments are the
key part, aren't they really? And obviously there's
a huge amount of worry now as Donald Trump has
come in and said he's going to drill, drill,
drill. If it wasn't for our British government's
initiative, you know, this public sector works
decarbonisation scheme, we wouldn't be doing
what we're doing and, you know, or have done
what we did. And it's just amazing that. You
know, the government have put that money where
their mouth is. I was, you know, that was one
of the things that sort of really infused me.
And I just hope that continues. We get very sort
of in our day to day when we're in primary schools.
And I don't really know much about the government
strategy and that side of things. But, you know,
I had a sense a bit that Rishi Sunak was backing
off a bit on some of the promises. But hopefully
now. with a new government that, you know, the
work of this public sector works will expand
rather than decrease. But it was, you know, just
an amazing thing. And so we are doing things
and people do care. And obviously, you know,
there's people like you, Hannah, working. this
way and and and and salix and everything it's
doing so um so there is hope and and and and
we are doing things um i think people you know
working people are they have busy lives and it's
very hard to sort of balance you know i even
think of my own life and i wish actually that
i could uh i keep thinking about it but perhaps
get an electric car rather than a petrol one
but um there are challenges there when you're
a public sector worker like me and the cost of
that kind of thing um though i'm very sort of
um reassured by some of the big companies i've
got friends where i live who've got company cars
that are electric so things that you know are
happening um big companies in crawley um like
variant are doing um electric cars for their
employees um yeah but In our busy lives, we sometimes
get caught up, don't we? And day to day things
take over. So, you know, it's kind of what you're
doing here, media work, keeping the profile,
keeping people aware. And one thing I forgot
to say about sort of our local community is that,
in fact, in Calfold, there's an organisation
called Green in Calfold. And I guess they won't
mind me saying it's a group of people who perhaps
had their main working careers and have got a
bit more time. But they're doing an awful lot
around the village to try and bring awareness
and doing various initiatives as well. And they
were obviously very interested. In fact, one
of their members came to the opening that you
came to on the 1st of March last year, Jerry's.
So, yeah, lots going on. But busy lives and finding
priorities, isn't it, and challenges. And we'll
probably move on to the children now. And I guess
our role in schools is that the children go into
those busy lives with an awareness of how important
it is to tackle climate change and that priority,
really, so that in their future working lives,
you know, they can balance things to help. our
futures yeah super yes let's talk about those
children because when i come up came along to
st peter's that day I was, you know, incredibly
impressed by them. In fact, put the children
in charge because they know exactly where they
want, where we should be going and what we should
be doing on climate change. But it's part of
your job to encourage those children to be positive
about the future. And there is a lot of anxiety.
Children do suffer. They call it climate anxiety,
don't they? Because they are seeing it on their
news screens every day. What kind of messages?
Are you hearing jars from the children? At school
sort of level, they don't tend to express their
worries to us. Though I'm aware we have to get
that balance between panicking them and remaining
optimistic. And that's probably conversations
they might be having with parents at home. But
we always find are children sort of wholly enthusiastic
about ideas and straight away, you know, wanting
to help. And we tend to sort of go in waves,
really. It's hard to sort of maintain the profile
all the time. And also, you know, there's other
things that we sometimes talk to the children
about. of importance as well. And various times
of the year, like Children in Need or Children's
Society, often in November, December, we're thinking
about other children. But so we tend to sort
of go in waves. Actually, last March when we
had the opening of the whole project, that was
a time really as a school where we kept on coming
back and talking about climate change and what
was going on and the progress of the project
and why it was happening and a great deal of
learning went on and they could all tell you
about the greenhouse effect and how electricity
was cleaner than the oil that we were burning.
especially as where our electricity comes from
now, you know, a lot of it's from renewables.
We're a year on now and it's time to we sort
of hopefully raise that profile again. And we've
actually got something coming up. We're working
with. Carrie Court, the Sussex Green Living Organisation,
slightly different to the Green and Calfold,
but Carrie does a lot right across Sussex. But
working with Green and Calfold, they're building
a pollination station just near the school. So
that's another sort of chance to do another initiative.
So we'll probably elect a new eco -committee
and get involved in that and then talk again
about... climate change and bring it all back
into the children's sort of focus again uh over
the next few months but yeah for us it's just
to keep on going keep the profile up but not
you know panicking the children when we talk
about these things um yeah of course the eco
committee were very much part of that day weren't
they back in march they were very much part of
that a whole celebration of the project um gary
do you feel that you're did you you've got this
background in astrophysics and and physics did
you ever imagine that you would be driving a
project like this forward for a primary school
in the village that you live in uh it's not something
that i had ever really contemplated or thought
about at all um i mean i i did I actually joined
Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth back in the
1970s. I've been passionate about ecology and
green environmental things practically all my
life. And through my career, different jobs that
I've done none of them have been particularly
focused in that in any of that kind of sphere
obviously IT and what have you is much more aimed
at the opposite end of things so when I was able
to start working with children in the school
that was a real opportunity And I certainly feel
that Giles has brought in a really excellent
ethos across the school. It's a fantastic little
community school that we have. And the children
are so exceptional, but they're also very local.
And I see many of them just walking around, going
up to the shops. My wife having taught there.
She is constantly meeting children and adults
and their children that she's taught over the
years. And it's so, yeah, no, I never expected
anything of this nature at all. Fantastic. So
what an amazing experience that you have had.
Hannah, can I just add in kind of like, I think
it was sort of Gary's. roots there as the things
he was talking about that he was passionate about
as a as a young man that kind of fueled um our
desire to complete the application really um
and i suppose to a certain extent you know my
background in geography as well we were quite
two like -minded people and we just looked at
this situation where these oil boilers were defunct
and we and we just really said to ourselves we're
not putting in oil boilers for the future generation
you know it would be wrong to put in oil boilers
for the next 30 years or gas or some sort of
fossil fuel so um that's where it all began um
but um you know i just have to say that gary
put in a huge amount of work far beyond you know
really you'd expect from his role in the school
just for his own personal passion and also with
his knowledge um you know the physics background
um that enabled us to complete the application
backed up really by the diocese who did pay for
some consultants to assist gary um and It feels
for us as a small school, quite a unique situation
that we had Gary and he was able to do that application
for when we had the diocese backing. And it doesn't
mean other small schools couldn't do it either.
It's just a question of finding, you know, the
right support. I mean, it is a truly inspiring
project. And that's small. Yes, small. But it's
a great example, isn't it, to a lot of organisations
to say you, you two with the right passion. Because
you've taken people with you, haven't you? That
enthusiasm and background that you both have,
you've managed to capture the imagination. Yeah,
and we had to get the backing of our governors
as well. Yes, you did. And they had to really
trust us. And we were lucky, you know, to get
their backing and to have quite forward -thinking
governors who, you know, looked at the risk and...
still thought it was worth it and weighed things
up. We've been exceptionally lucky with our governors
and the governing board. Again, without them,
none of this would have been achieved. It's a
great credit to all of you, actually, for both
of you taking the lead. And I suppose, Giles,
for trusting in Gary and working as a team. It's
been fantastic. And the children, they really
have cheered you on along the way, haven't they,
and been fully engaged? They have. And I mean,
all that disruption that Gary was talking about,
you know, one day... They'd be going around the
back to come out and underneath the scaffolding.
And the next day, no, there's wasps around the
back. No, there's a delivery coming. You've got
to go this way. And the children sort of took
it all in their stride, really. You know, they
were hemmed in by Paris fencing and couldn't
go here and couldn't go there. There were people
on the roof while they were doing their lessons
with blowtorches and hammering. Yes, actually,
you're right, Hannah. I'm glad you mentioned
the children and the teachers. It's truly amazing.
Everybody went with it and nobody really sort
of... complained and yeah superb thank you I
mean I could talk to you for hours and hours
because it is such a wonderful project and with
so much learning there and we hope also one day
we can come back and see it again you know when
you're even further into the project and also
watching and listening to your next steps we
would love to follow that progress so a big thank
you to both of you today because we've run out
of a little bit of our time but thank you very
much to Giles and to Gary from St Peter's to
talking to us about your amazing project and
your fantastic children as well as all your stakeholders
and there can be no doubt that climate change
is the biggest challenge of our time today we
must reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow
global warming today we must act for tomorrow
adjusting our lifestyles to current and future
impacts of climate change today we must use our
collective wisdom to deliver on our climate commitments
today we work for tomorrow's world so don't forget
to subscribe to our podcast. Send any news and
views to us at our podcast email address, which
is podcast at salixfinance .co .uk. But thank
you very much once again to Giles and to Gary
from St. Peter's. Thank you. Thanks for having
us. It was a pleasure. You've been listening
to the Decarbonisation Dialogue, a podcast from
Salix. For more information about our work, And
to find more content, please visit salixfinance
.co .uk forward slash podcasts.