Our world record attempt sent a big message!

Pupils of St Edward’s Prep made a World Record attempt for the Largest Plastic Bottle Sentence.

The previous record, held in a shopping mall in Dubai in August 2020, was 2650 bottles. St Edward’s Prep’s sentence was written with 3325 bottles!

Our Head, Jonathon Parsons, explained “St Edward’s Prep wanted to make a big statement about climate change. This half term, all our children from our Nursery, to our year 6s have been learning about our planet and the importance of looking after it now. Within all of our studies we encourage the children to apply their learning and take action to make the world a better place. What better way of doing this than trying to break a record! Climate change is a problem that will hit their generation harder than ours and we wanted show them that they had a voice and they do not have to wait to make a difference – they can do it now.”

The children were involved at every step of the way and it was a Reception child who came up with the statement ‘There is only one earth’. 

On Thursday, the whole school community, including all the pupils from the Nursery up, staff, parents and volunteers, took 45 minutes to create the sentence on the school astropitch. It was assiduously checked and counted by independent volunteer officials, and will be submitted for verification.

“It’s very important, because of all the plastic in our oceans” said one Year 4 pupil. “We all worked together to make this happen and win the World Record.”

This was a tremendous combined effort, involving pupils, parents, staff and local businesses, but the children were the real driving force behind the attempt, going out into the community, collecting as many bottles as possible, from neighbours, hotels, shops and restaurants.

Mr Parsons continued “This project centred around our community. St Edward’s Prep is a family school and we love to learn and enjoy our time together. COVID has really robbed us of opportunities to do this and involve the wider community. This event galvanised our entire community and reconnected them with the school. It was also about fun! Learning should be enjoyable and challenging and this was certainly both.”