Eco-Schools

Welcome to the Eco-Schools page of our website. Here, you can find information about the Eco-Schools process and what we are doing at Collingham Lady Elizabeth Hastings Primary School to achieve our Green Flag award.

What is Eco-Schools?

Educators and young people care deeply about environmental issues and have a strong desire to actively protect our planet. However, environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity-loss or plastic pollution are huge global issues and the thought of tackling them can be intimidating, leaving many feeling overwhelmed and wondering ‘Where do I begin?’

The Eco-Schools programme provides a simple, seven-step framework that answers this question whilst empowering young people to make a difference in their school, local community and beyond. Since 1994, millions of young people around the world have worked through the Eco-Schools Seven Steps before being recognised for their efforts with a prestigious Eco-Schools Green Flag.

Schools connect their activities to three or more of the Ten Eco-Schools Topics. These topics break large, global issues like climate change into more manageable and directed themes that prompt young people to consider environmental changes that they can make in their school and everyday lives.

How does Eco-Schools work?

Over the course the academic year we will follow the Eco- Schools seven step framework

Step 1- Create an Eco-Committee- children responsible for running the Eco- Schools programme 

Step 2- Conduct an environmental review- this is a set of fact-finding questions linked to 10 Eco-Schools topics that have been designed to help the Eco-Committee understand what environmental work our school is already doing, whilst inspiring further youth-led eco-actions.

Step 3-Create an action plan- to help plan and manage actions for 3 Eco-Schools Topics of their choice, which children will work on during the school year.

Step 4- Curriculum links- Including environmental education in a variety of different curriculum areas educating a variety of year groups during the school year.

Step 5- Informing and involving- Engaging the entire school and its wider community in eco-projects and actions for the 3 Eco-Schools topics chosen in Step 3: Action Plan

Step 6- Monitoring and Evaluation- Assessing the impact of the topic work in your action plan, addressing what worked well, what needed adapting and how your Eco-Committee could develop their eco-actions in the future.

After working through the seven Eco-Schools steps during the academic year, schools, colleges and nurseries can apply for an Eco-Schools Green Flag accreditation during the annual application window, open from 1st May to 31st July.

Applying for Eco-Schools accreditation is the perfect way to acknowledge, reward and celebrate the ecological achievements of young people. It clearly demonstrates that their hard work is appreciated, and it provides them with the confidence and motivation needed to continue actively engaging with environmental issues throughout their lifetimes. Finally, it also tells local communities that a school, college or nursery is forward-thinking and promotes youth-led environmental education and action.

The Ten Topics

The ten topics that Eco-Schools focus on are:

• Energy
• Water
• Biodiversity
• Global Citizenship
• Waste
• Litter
• Transport
• School Grounds
• Marine
• Healthy Eating

Eco-Schools at Collingham

Step 1

During the Autumn term the children had the opportunity to apply to become a member of the Eco Committee- they completed an application form and presented their ideas to their class and Mrs Swift, Mrs Azimikorf and Mr Cook. The children then held elections in each class to vote for who their wanted to be in the Eco Committee.

Congratulations to the following members-

Year 1 - Emelia & Alice

Year 2 - Seth & Niamh

Year 3 - Seb B & William

Year 4 - Ava & Alexa

Year 5 - Jake & Thomas

Year 6 - Eleanor & Amelia

Step 2- Environmental review

Following our annual Environmental Review, we are pleased to report that our school has become much more eco-friendly since we started our journey. After scoring in each topic, we are now creating our Action Plan for the year ahead. 

Step 3- Action plan

Our targets for the year are:

1) To provide homes and support for wildlife,
both on our school grounds and in the wider
world.
2) To promote a healthy lifestyle in school.
3) To reduce the amount of water wasted, both
on the school grounds and in the community.

Step 4 - Curriculum Links

Sustainability Week

Reception

The children in Reception have tried super hard this week to understand some really big and tricky concepts using our school ‘Environment’ curriculum driver. Their challenge was to become a Sustainability Superhero!

As always, we have used stories to support and expand their learning, starting with 'George Saves the World by Lunchtime'. The children explored how we can follow the 6Rs to reduce waste and therefore help the environment – Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Rot, Repair and, if all else fails, Recycle. They then had to draw themselves as a superhero and explain how they could protect and save our precious world – the results were fantastic! The children also enjoyed listening to and discussing the stories 'Michael Recycle' and 'Messy Magpie' to enhance their understanding of the importance of recycling.

Next, the children had to become 'Recycling Superheroes' by reusing ‘waste’ to create a musical instrument. We were impressed with the range of shakers, drums and guitars the children created. There were even some very imaginative ‘2 instruments in 1’! The children are looking forward to bringing them home to play for you! 

Our final story was 'Superworm' – one of our five focus stories for the year. Last week, the children set up our wormery with Mrs Naylor and talked about how we can look after them. This week, we focused on thinking about their purpose – to help us ‘rot’ unwanted fruit waste into compost. Each week, we will have monitors to be in charge on 'Fruit Waste Friday'! They will collect appropriate fruit waste in our special box and ‘feed’ it to the worms. This will be Reception class’s ongoing sustainability focus for the year. We even had a Superworm focused PE lesson where the children took part in a Superworm Wriggle and Run, a Superworm Roll and, best of all, a Superworm Obstacle Course!

Step 5- Informing and involving

To be updated

Step 6- Monitoring ad Evaluation

To be updated

Step 7- Eco-Code