Eco Schools
Autumn 2022
We love the range of activities that you and your Eco-Committee planned for delivery. The fact that they cover both indoor (a waste awareness campaign with posters & displays and promoting paper & card recycling bins) and outdoor (regular litter picks and a Walk to School Week) activities is excellent. It was also great to see accountability and monitoring and evaluation clearly marked in your Action Plan. Great work!
You’ve clearly embedded the ethos of the Eco-Schools programme far and wide in your school! We’re really impressed at how you’ve linked environmental issues to a variety of curriculum areas. We loved seeing the excellent examples of your Schemes of Work and planning tools. This is a great example of layering in sustainability and climate change into your studies.
Your multiple Eco-Boards are great - incredibly visual and engaging and promote your work in a very attractive way. We love how active your Eco-Committee was in communicating their activities school-wide with both assembly and class feedback as well as the Eco-board itself. These all combine to make a great approach!
I hope you and your Eco-Committee take great pride in your achievements, when listed it's surprising how many there are – however, the improvements to your school environment with the litter and waste reducing and recycling initiatives and, most of all, your sustainable transport promotion (we loved that) all nicely stand out!
As always THANK YOU very much for your hard work, we are so proud of all our schools and the collective achievements they have made to protect our planet for future generations.
Congratulations to everyone for the great work you have managed to do, earning your Green Flag with Merit in style. You should all be very proud of your work and the application you have submitted!
Spring 2022
The children in Year 1 have been learning about looking after the environment and made posters to remind us all about how we can make a difference.
The School Council have been finding out in which areas our school is environmentally friendly and which areas we could improve.
To assist with this some FHI Ecco Warriors interviewed staff and pupils to ask how they REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE. Please read some of their findings below.
Kitchen
Lots is done in the kitchen to reduce and reuse! Empty margarine pots are kept to store food in. Large tins are donated to an artist who decorates them and turns them into flower pots. Plastic bottles are cut down to use as funnels to top up and help refill ketchup pots. Food waste is collected separately to be composted.
Office
Everyone in the office is trying to REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE. For example everyone recycles paper in the red recycling bin. Ms White has a drawer full of plastic wallets she reuses to reduce her plastic waste. Ms Sinclair tries to buy wicker baskets rather than plastic boxes. Mrs Gilbert uses a lot of post-it notes so uses the smallest ones possible so she is saving paper and Mr Derrig is using mugs to store his pens rather than buy pen pots! Hand sanitiser is provided in each classroom and around the school- the bottles are refilled to save plastic waste. Washing up liquid bottles used in the staffroom are also refilled and the brand has been chosen because it is kinder to the environment.
Classrooms
The children are learning not to waste paper but value each piece! They put any waste paper in the red bin to be recycled. Most children use a reusable water bottle to reduce plastic waste. Ms McGrail has been demonstrating how display walls can be backed with fabric to save paper and many teachers are trying to reduce the amount of laminating they do.
Outside
Mr Graham noticed how many more hedgehogs were in the school grounds after the KS1 garden was established! Early Years and KS1 both have spaces which provide plants for pollinators and food for other wildlife. We also have bug hotels and make sure there are areas of shelter for wildlife in the winter months.
Autumn 2021
The children in KS1 have been very busy tidying the flower beds and keeping them weed free. Lots of bulbs have been planted by the children which should appear in the Spring.
In Year 1 the children enjoyed using mud and natural objects to make a picture!
The children worked collaboratively to collect the fallen apples to practise counting and ordering numbers. Year 2 learnt about the international summit held in Glasgow called Cop26- ‘Uniting the world to fight climate change’. They thought about what they would like their adults to do to combat climate change, as well as what changes they themselves can do to help.
