THE children and staff of Okehampton Primary School are celebrating after being named Wales and West Champions of the Better Energy School Awards. 

Their project ‘There’s an Orangutan in my Packed Lunch!’ not only took top spot in the ‘Totally Creative’ category across Wales and Western England, but was also declared the best project in all categories from the entire region, making it the Wales and West Champion for 2018. 

Thirty children from the school joined regional champions from schools in Scotland, England and Wales at the national awards ceremony, held on June 14 at London Zoo. 

All of the regional champions were presented with a trophy and a cheque for £1,000 to put towards their school funds by YPTE Presidents TV presenter Naomi Wilkinson, children’s author Andy Stanton and wildlife cameraman and presenter Adrian Cale, together with actor and TV presenter Cel Spellman. 

The UK champions, Hanover Street School from Aberdeen received a total of £5,000 for their school funds.

The whole-school project investigated the issues surrounding pre-packaged and processed food, together with the impacts it has on the environment, health, energy consumption, waste, litter and biodiversity.

How palm oil production in rainforest areas affects the lifestyles of local people and orangutans was a particular focus and explains the project’s quirky title.

Frances Rickwood, eco school co-ordinator at Okehampton Primary School, said: ‘While learning about orangutans we discovered that many processed foods contain unsustainable palm oil which causes problems for these magnificent apes. 

‘We will continue to raise the profile of the palm oil debate over the next year!’

The Better Energy School Awards is a nationwide competition for five to 11 year olds, which is run by the Young People’s Trust for the Environment (YPTE) in partnership with Total.

The competition, which aims to generate interest in the environment and raise awareness of the need for sustainable energy sources, has received entries from almost 275,000 children since it began in 2007.

The competition will run again in 2018-19. For details on how to enter or to see details of previous winners, please visit http://betterenergyschoolawards.org