Watch dedicated school pupils in action as they clean up popular Sunderland park

Year 7 pupils from St Aidan’s Catholic Academy have been working hard to tidy up Backhouse Park on Ryhope Road during a series of regular litter picks.

Held over six weeks, the litter picks form part of the school’s work on the CLIMB initiative which focuses on the likes of Catholic life, literacy, independence and belonging.

One such aspect of the initiative is on volunteering to help serve the community.

As part of this, around 140 students have been helping group ICOS ((International Community Organisation of Sunderland) to clean up the park.

Greg Stephenson, lead practitioner in science at the school, said pupils have enjoyed taking part in the volunteering.

He said: “As part of CLIMB pupils have had to take part in a number of different tasks in each section and volunteering is a big aspect of it.

“We discussed volunteering opportunities and the enthusiasm of pupils has been fantastic, with the whole year group getting involved.

“Different groups have been helping the Friends of Backhouse Park and ICOS in the park and the first week saw them working to build the remembrance garden.

“The feedback we have had has been fantastic.”

Coun Peter Wood, school governor and Conservative councillor for St Michael’s ward, was delighted to see the youngsters working in the park.

He said: “I think it is an excellent project that is bringing everyone together.”

Fellow St Michael’s Conservative councillor Michael Dixon, said it was great to see the children involved in the clean up.

Daniel Krzyszczak, from ICOS which works to clean up the park and other areas of the community, said: “We work with other organisations to fill the gap in work that the council can no longer do.

“Over the last six weeks we have been working with the children and they have been filling 15 to 25 bags of rubbish each week.

“The park is now better than when we started and people are now being more considerate about what they are doing in the park and thanking us for what we are doing.”