Eco Update – Eco flag Award accreditation
During Autumn 2021, our year six school councilors travelled to meet with the other school councilor representatives at our partnership schools where we held a mini COP 22, whilst there we completed an environmental action review looking at the things we do to look after the school and the environment and things we could improve. From this we constructed an action plan that showed our actions that we wanted to take this year. During the year we have planned a range of activities such as: Earth Day, Charity support, Eat them to Defeat them, creating are our bird feeders, planting fruit and veg to eat with lunch and a variety of tree planting. You can see our efforts from this year visually in school on our eco-board by the hub!
We are very proud to announce that we have been recognized and awarded with an Eco green flag for all our hard work that we have been doing to make our school more eco-conscious.
Here is the feedback we received based on the work we have done this academic year:
We like your approach to selecting the Eco-Committee members by a democratic voting system whereby members are chosen by their classmates. We like that you link the project to your school motto "To empower children to have the knowledge, the will, and the strength to positively impact on the world in which they live – to become architects of a better world".
This approach demonstrates an educational and inclusive approach to the programme. It is great that you have encouraged the students to take ownership of the project and that you are also promoting democratic values in this way! We also like how the Eco-Committee members communicate with each other and to internal and external stakeholders through using a variety of methods including reporting back to classes and through assemblies. You also use your lovely colourful and eye-catching Eco-Board and the way you use your school website. It is great that you communicate with each other through using a variety of methods including through the school blog. This is really informing and involving and shows how valued and embedded the Eco-Schools programme is in your school. It was really great to read how your Environmental Review provided the basis for the projects in your Action Plan. The Environmental Review also clearly highlighted areas that you needed to improve on and it is great that your overall approach generated ideas for changes that you could make, as this demonstrates a reflective and considered approach to your Eco-Schools work. It was great to hear that you used the Environmental Review areas as a driver to support your initiatives throughout the year, taking a different topic area to focus on each half term!
You’ve clearly taken efforts to connect your energy, biodiversity and school grounds projects happening across the school and embedding work into curriculum and everyday school life in a really impactful way. This is really inspiring and clever. Your action plan is great! The actions that you planned out were really SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound). This is important as it helps to achieve progress and empower your Eco-Committee. It was also great to see accountability and monitoring and evaluation clearly marked in your Action Plan and that you identify accountability and monitoring and evaluation activities in detail. Excellent work! We also thought your Eco-Code ideas were fun and inclusive! They are punchy and creative, setting out tangible and accessible calls to action your whole school can get behind, and especially loved your use of fun and colourful posters! Your curriculum links were really creative. For example, in geography lessons your children learn about human and physical threats to the GBR as an ecosystem, creating presentations in these areas. You cover Plastic Pollution & Preservation of Marine Life in English lessons whereby students apply knowledge about marine life threats to create emotive speeches to celebrate marine life and the need to preserve it at all costs, and how human impact contributes to this. You back this up with practical kinaesthetic learning on your school grounds. This kind of pedagogical work encourages pupils to make links between theory and the real world, and hopefully approach topics in a fresh and relevant way, and is a great way to encourage children to take ownership of local environmental issues.
You've also clearly looked both internally and externally and engaged with a wide range of different stakeholders, including your work with RSPB Big School's Watch, Action for Conservation, World Vision, Save the Children, New Forest Basics Bank and Poiters Care. We are particularly impressed that your school worked with the local Rotary club planting trees and received saplings from the Queen’s Canopy scheme to plant on school grounds. This kind of work is a great example of the collaborative approach we will all need to adopt to combat pollution in the environment - your application made us feel really positive for the future!
Your achievements this year have been wonderful! For example, your school has planted fruit trees and a range of fruits/vegetables which the school kitchens have used. You care for your school grounds! have done great work adding bug hotels and bird feeders! This all truly makes the Eco-Schools initiative an integral part of your school life. Congratulations to everyone for the great work you have managed to do. You should all be very proud of your amazing work and the great application you have submitted. You've really earned your Green Flag accreditation!
We are looking forward to continuing the work we do this year, look out for further updates soon!
