Green Flag Eco School

Introduced in 1994 in response to the 1992 UN Rio Earth Summit, Eco-Schools is operated globally by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) and is managed in England by Keep Britain Tidy.

The Eco-Schools programme consists of three structural elements – The Seven Step Framework, the Eco-Schools Topics and assessment for the international Eco-Schools Green Flag. To be successful the programme requires support from school leaders and active involvement from staff, as well as a long-term commitment and the willingness to involve students in decision-making. The Eco-Schools Seven Steps methodology is a series of carefully engineered measures to help schools maximise the success of their Eco-School ambitions.

At Wood Street Infant school, we have our second Green Flag award.

3 children from each class are chosen to become part of the Eco Council. The Council meet half termly, to discuss our chosen topics and learn more about them. We identify what measures are in place in the school and what needs to change or improve moving forwards. The children complete an environmental review, which looks at the steps which the school are taking and gives us ideas to form our action plan for the year.

Topics include, but are not limited to the following:

Water

Waste

Litter

Bio-Diversity

Marine

The Eco Council will have assemblies and encourage other children in the school to get on board with our action plan, be it recycle more, use less plastic, turn out lights etc.

We have exciting visits from organisations such as the David Shepherd Wildlife foundation, teaching us about bio diversity and endangered species.

We do class and whole school litter picks throughout the year and link these to our learning, for example by weighing the litter, and making comparisons to previous litter picks.

As a lot of our learning takes place outdoors, being an eco-school ties in with our curriculum. We are encouraging our children to be responsible for their environment and inspiring them to make good choices with regard to our planet.