Lead Schools are role models for other schools in the SSI network; they have demonstrable success in reducing their own school’s environmental impact and have proven track record of having tackled all four SSI components.

Schools willing to register as Lead schools can choose schools of their own liking and convenience for mentoring or could alternatively approach EAD for suggestions.

Schools desiring to participate in the Sustainable Schools programme as a Lead school ought to have participated in the initiative before.They should have proven track record of having attempted all of the four components. They need to have:

• Assess their school’s environmental impact using the Green School Audit manual.
• Reduce their school’s environmental impact on at least two of the areas that Green School Audit covers.
• Established and run successful Eco Clubs, are aware of the guidelines and have complied with them for running their Eco Club as per EAD’s requirements, namely:
  1. Keeping monthly Eco Club meeting records.
  2. Observing at least two environmental occasions in their schools with an event/ activity.
  3. Taking at least one internal and one external project reaching out to the community during the course of the academic session.
• Participate in workshops organised by EAD and any other specialist environmental entities. Also, take SSI online courses and provide evidence of sharing the training with other teachers and have shown evidence of having embedded parts of training into their school’s curriculum.
• Have taken their students for environmental field trips; and tried to connect the field trips to their curriculum. Teachers are capable of conducting environmental field trips on their own.

A Lead School must select at least one other school (whether new to SSI or already part of the SSI network) to guide.

Lead Schools are expected to assist their chosen school(s) with their Green School Audit process, as mentors. This can be done in the following ways:

• Advice adopted schools on Green audit procedures.
• Allow audit team/ Audit teacher from adopted school into their schools if need be, to get a hands on experience on collecting data for the audit.
• Be available for the adopted schools through emails or telephone for any trouble-shooting on Green audit procedures or calculations.
• Conduct Green School Audit training and workshops for teachers from the mentored school, if needed.
• Assist the mentored school(s) with running their Eco-Clubs by:
1. Sharing ideas for holding activities, projects, events as a part of Eco-Club activity.
2. Encourage joint workshops, events, activities between the Lead School and mentored school(s).
3. Encourage communication and sharing environmental best practices between Eco-Club members of both schools.
4. Encourage student and teacher exchange between both schools while conducting Eco-Club activities especially when experts are called in from other organisations to do presentations or lectures.
5. Send reminders to mentored school(s) to submit their reports online. In addition, ensure that students from mentored schools are made aware of SSI’s requirements for running successful Eco-Clubs.
6. Hold at least one interschool teacher training programme on effective dissemination of environmental concepts within classrooms based on the experience of being trained by EAD or other accredited entities. The Lead School can approach EAD for any reasonable support. It should be noted that organising the training programme and follow up activities should be fully taken up by the Lead School.
• Share resource material, information, or pedagogy on teaching and learning about environment within the classroom context with the mentored school(s).
• Share knowledge regarding any new location for Field Trips with mentored school(s).
• Motivate mentored school(s) to conduct at least two Field Trips during the course of academic session.
• Guide adopted school on how best Field Trips could be integrated into curriculum.

Lead Schools are evaluated on how best they promote, share knowledge, and assist with capacity building of other school(s) in the SSI network and support their journey towards sustainability.

One of the important points for Lead Schools to consider is the combined savings on water, waste and energy and carbon achieved in conjunction with mentored school(s).

It’s advantageous for a Lead School to guide more than one school.

Lead Schools are advised to initiate a protocol for communicating with the mentored school(s).

Lead schools need to keep record of all communication regarding SSI with the mentored school(s) whether they be emails/ formal letters.

In case of any issues arising with mentored school(s), Lead Schools can approach the SSI team.

Lead Schools follow the same reporting framework for all four SSI components as the rest of the schools in the network.

Lead Schools have an additional reporting requirement to provide detailed information about the other SSI schools that they are mentoring; including interschool and teacher meetings, joint workshops, and Train the Trainer activities.

Within the Green Stars rating system, Lead Schools’ reporting across all SSI components, in addition to their reporting on interschool collaboration, is averaged. Each school is assigned a set colour based on its score.

Lead Schools are usually among the best performing SSI schools across all four components, therefore in the following year and based on their final score, they can either be awarded 6 Stars if they achieve less than 50% or 7 Stars if they achieve 50% or more.