ACTIVE SUSTAINABILITY GROUP
Interview with Mr Ben Hartley, the School Marshal What is a School Marshal? Will Spedding (PS4) met with Mr Hartley, our new School Marshal, to learn more about his role and how his work affects us all. to organise and facilitate everything and anything, from our social events to our exam rooms. More thanks should then go to the amazing Domestic Services staff, who work tirelessly to keep our school clean and pleasant to be in. And finally, boarders in particular should thank the brilliant team who work away in the laundry, washing the tens of thousands of items of clothing and bedding every week, all year round. Accompanied by the team of Mrs Reeves, Miss Biernaczyk and Mrs Trask, Mr Hartley organises the movements of all these people, as well as whatever random requests walk into the Porter’s Lodge every day. Mr Hartley and his team are a friendly bunch, so do say hello as you pass.
M
ost of us are blissfully oblivious to the role of School Marshal and yet it is, arguably, one of the most vital to the smooth running of the school. Mr Ben Hartley joined us as School Marshal in October 2021 and was happy to meet up to explain more about the job and, in particular, the roles we can all play in making a practical difference to our shared living environment. Mr Hartley was born and raised in Kent and went to The Judd School before joining the police force for 22 years as a firearms instructor in both Kent and London. From there he went to Kings Canterbury, before returning to the area to become our School Marshal in October 2021. Mr Hartley works as an operations manager of sorts, tasked with overseeing the staggering workload of the Porters, Domestic services and the Laundry team, as well as everything from car park management, deliveries and fire alarms. We should all stop for a minute and applaud the Porters. Described by Mr Hartley as the ‘magicians of the school’, the Porters, headed up by Vesh, work in the background
56
But more recently, Mr Hartley has been focusing on an audit from Countrystyle, who have the unenviable task of removing all the rubbish we generate on site, be that general rubbish, DMR (Dry, Mixed Recycling – that’s paper, card, tins and bottles to you or me) or food waste. It’s no lie that almost every one of us will throw things away into the wrong bins, whether it’s down to being late from break to Period 4, or simply out of sheer laziness. But after a recent inspection from Countrystyle, the conclusion that was drawn was that as a school we can do considerably better on streaming waste. Mr Hartley will be meeting with them later in the term to decide how we can, in the long term, improve our performance. One of the areas that was highlighted was cardboard, especially that which comes from deliveries. Whether it’s the flood of Domino’s pizzas on Tuesday nights, or the torrent of Amazon Prime boxes which go to the school throughout the week, we are no strangers to them. The problem is not just the staggering number, but the fact that if simply thrown away in their cubic form, bins fill up after almost 4 or 5 of these boxes, bins which could have facilitated days’ worth of waste otherwise. This ends up costing the school far more and reduces our efficiency as a school. Another common problem, which I’m sure you will all have heard a thousand times, is the mixing of recycling and food waste. A bin can be 95% filled with recyclable material, but as soon as an odd banana skin is carelessly thrown in there,
