Shenton College 

Shenton College is a state high school that actively encourages its 2600 students to meaningfully contribute  to the local community.

Year 9 student, Naroah Gresham saw an opportunity for the school to build on its community partnerships through Containers for Change and, with the help of her teacher Samantha White, she presented a power point presentation to the Year 9 Student Council on how it could help raise funds for the school’s charity program.

The Student Council embraced the idea and implemented it at the Start of term 2 2022,  with container drop off points placed around the school. However, despite promoting it at school assemblies and their communication platform Compass, the campaign got off to a slow start. The drop off bins were often filled with general waste despite being marked ‘containers only’, and the number of collected containers was low. 

Realising they needed to change tactic, the Student Council decided to run a container competition between the 16 Year 9 mentor classes in the hope it might attract more attention. To reduce contamination of general waste, they placed large collection baskets in each of the classes.

With the prize of a private pizza party for the winning class at the end of the term, competition was fierce. Students began bringing in containers from home and asking their neighbours and the local  community for containers. Following the collection and tally count by the Student Council each week, each class eagerly checked the school’s Instagram account and Compass for the latest update to see who was in the lead. 
At the end of the term, the Student Council filled the van with the containers and took them to the Shenton Quarter Depot where they manually placed each container into the collection vending machines. While Samantha conceded it was a time-consuming process, the students enjoyed being so involved. 

“It is completely student-led, so it’s great that they are keen to be make it succeed and have managed to transfer their passion for this to all the students in their year.”

However, as the volume of containers continues to grow, Samantha said they will look to partner with their local depot to assist with collections and bins.  

With this smaller and more controlled approach amongst  the 456 Year 9 students, the Student Council found it easier to manage and motivate. It also proved to be much more successful with 2000 containers collected in one term (10 weeks), which raised $198 for the RSPCA. The Student Council will continue to trial the container collection with the Year 9 student group before implementing it across the whole school.