Tree Tops: a schoolyard sanctuary

The unassuming green walls of Tree Tops School do not beg for attention. The school looks as though it's been there forever, nestled between the trees. Despite its modest exterior, Tree Tops is a gem, spread across three campuses in Durban.

“If you come into our school, it’s like an oasis,” says Kerryn Irving, an art teacher at Tree Tops. When walking into most mainstream schools, one is impressed by spotless classrooms and rows of computers. At Tree Tops, one is astounded by the indigenous gardens and recycling bins. According to Irving, who has taught at the school for 17 years, “environmental learning is integrated into everything. In everything we do, we always bring it back to eco”. Tree Tops’ mission statement is, in a nutshell: respect yourself, respect others and respect the environment.

Tree Tops’ three campuses are all equally special. All have indigenous permaculture gardens, recycling stations and rainwater tanks. At the Windmill campus, the teachers have been making a lot of pesto as the basil bushes are flourishing. The teachers at the Silverton campus, meanwhile, must get to the banana trees before the monkeys do. The Bellevue campus boasts an abundant vegetable garden. “We’re showing the children that you can grow your own,” says Irving, referring to Tree Tops’ sustainable practices. The worm farms are a popular feature, too. After break time, the auspicious duty of class monitor is to collect food scraps that are suitable for the worms to feed on. The morsels are then added to the wormery. The children are taught that the resultant ‘worm wee’ acts as a fertiliser to enrich the soil.

Tree Tops is celebrating its diamond decade as an Eco-School, a process which began in 2011 when they earned their Green Flag after completing several challenges. Eco-Schools is an international programme implemented nationally by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa (WESSA). Every year, each Eco-School submits a portfolio to WESSA outlining their activities during the year, all of which fall under various categories. School themes for 2021 are Waste, Health and Wellbeing, Marine and Coast, Biodiversity and Nature and finally, Community and Heritage. For each theme, Tree Tops has chosen a topic to teach to their pupils, whose ages range from two to nine. Although this may seem like a lot to handle for such small children, Irving says that the pupils are very enthusiastic: “if they see litter outside school, they're horrified, because [environmental awareness is] ingrained in them since two”.

Tree Tops proves that one can never be too young to learn to care for the environment. “We centre a lot of our work on recycling because it's attainable and achievable for our age group,” says Irving. Even the two-year-olds are involved; on Thursdays, all the pupils bring recyclable waste from home, which they sort into different bins. For the older children in grades two and three, Fridays are dedicated to the Eco-Rangers programme. The pupils pledge a solemn oath to look after the environment and receive a badge in honour of their promise. Each Friday, the Eco-Rangers complete various activities, from indigenous gardening to environmental debate forums. Often, the Eco-Rangers will watch a video with an environmental message, and then discuss how they could make a difference. Most recently, the Eco-Rangers pondered the huge chemical spill in Durban and consequent poisoning of the Indian Ocean.

The eco-market is one of the most notable of Tree Tops’ events. Art lessons are not short of inspiration in the time leading up to the eco-market, as pupils busy themselves with creating all kinds of crafts from recyclables. “The children turn [recycled materials] into bird feeders, book boxes and jewellery, to name a few,” says Irving. “Then the parents come and basically purchase back their anti-waste that’s been recreated,” she laughs. The funds collected from the eco-market either go to a charity or are earmarked for the school’s eco-portfolio. For this year’s Arbor Day, Tree Tops wanted to support an under resourced school. The pupils were given artistic license for the day, dressing green and leafy like trees. The teachers grew a collection of spekboom, which was the chosen plant this year, in the school’s garden and the pupils decorated recycled tins to plant them in. Tree Tops’ dedicated parents then bought the plants to take back to their own homes. The money raised went towards buying trees for the underprivileged school. As for the fiscally faithful parents, most send their children to the school specifically because environmental awareness is the baseline of what Tree Tops does.

Tree Tops is truly anything but a normal primary school. The devotion to the environment is heart-warming, as is the passion with which their pupils are spreading the message of environmental awareness. At Tree Tops, “it’s education in the environment, about the environment and for the better of the environment”.