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.