Sustainability Workshop

Sustainability Workshop

 

 Workshop with Simone Rossouw (Howe, 2016)

Global Awareness, Sustainability and Citizenship is a key theme for RHS this year. We are actively putting into practice more sustainable ways of working and living, and this is being consolidated with our pupils by inviting experts in the field to speak to them. It is important to have real world understanding from people who are working on a local, national and global scale to work towards a more sustainable world. 

We were delighted to welcome back Simone Rossouw (Howe, 2016) to RHS on Monday to deliver workshops and a talk to our pupils. Simone works as a Sustainability Analyst for URBN, a large conglomerate which includes companies Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie. All pupils in Years 7-9 attended an hour-long workshop with Simone, during which she outlined her role and then led some hands-on research with the pupils on microplastics, their impact on different sectors and emerging sustainability solutions. This combination of industry insight and getting pupils to discover information for themselves led to a highly interactive session. These sessions added real-world context to work already done in Geography and Design Technology on microplastics and broader sustainability. 

During her talk to our Year 12 pupils she recalled a time when Chris Graham, now Head of RHS Futures, said that pupils in Simone’s year group and below would probably go into a job which did not yet exist – that is exactly what Simone has done! She also highlighted to pupils that it is fine to not know at this stage what career or industry you want to go into, and that by following personal passions and interests you will find your way! Simone is living proof of this, having never envisioned heading into sustainability or fashion whilst at school or university. At the end of her talk, Simone spent time with Year 12 pupils who wanted to know more and chatted with them further about CVs, their career plans and further advice on next steps beyond RHS.   

Thank you to Simone for coming back to RHS and giving some valuable information to our pupils! We are always so grateful when alumni want to come back and share what they have been up to after their time at RHS, and we look forward to welcoming back others in the coming months. If you are a former RHS pupil who would like to get involved in a similar event, or if you are involved with issues of global awareness, sustainability and citizenship and would like to lend your expertise to our pupils, then please do get in touch with Katie Gould via kgould@royalhospitalschool.org