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Every student in a Harlow secondary school is rolling up their sleeves and cleaning up their environment.

Burnt Mill Academy head girl Georgia Bailey and head boy Matthew Hart felt the school grounds were becoming untidy with too much litter dropped on the floor.

So, they set about putting together a litter picking timetable to involve all students in all year groups.

And the work will not stop until the litter stops, they have told peers.

Georgia, Year 11, said: “We decided we wanted to do something about the amount of litter around the school.

“Everyone in the Student Senior Leadership Team (SSLT) and senior prefects have got on board and we raised awareness of our project in assemblies.”

During morning form time, a member of the SSLT or a senior prefect takes a form group out with litter-pickers, gloves and bags to tidy up an area of the school for 15 minutes.

Georgia said: “Because people are now having to pick up the rubbish, they are not throwing it so much, so it is already having an impact. The school looks better; it looks more presentable. It really is noticeable and even visiting governors have commented on it.

“The litter picking will stop when there is no more litter to pick up.”

Francis Collins, head of science, said: “It’s fantastic to see our SSLT using their initiative to make our school a cleaner place. Projects like this take a lot of work to organise and implement, especially when they are trying to juggle between their studies and their duties as SSLT.”