The school with two hundred and thirty seven children of four to seven years of age, have been busy carrying out numerous projects to help their environment, from learning how to save energy by switching electrical equipment off to creating leaf mould to take home to their parents to compost. The school was awarded both the bronze and silver eco school awards in March 2007. Support for the scheme has been wide spread with everyone getting involved such as teachers, governors and parents.
Eco Committee
The school has an eco committee with representatives from each year who meet to discuss environmental issues in their school. During this meeting the children have an opportunity to discuss ideas they have collected from their classes suggestion box, with suggestions of activities they could be involved in. They also look at any issues which have arisen from previous meetings, such as where to put their new animal boxes.
The eco committee receives support from all teachers with every class having made their own suggestion box and the odd piece of homework set in line with the eco committee. School governors also attend eco school committee meetings whenever possible.
Projects
Energy & Water
During Switch It Off 2007 the children at Canon Evans school learnt the importance of switching off electrical appliances which are not in use.
The children attending the after school eco club became secret energy monitors, making their own badges and investigating what had been left on in the school using a simple tally table. The children were then told the results of the secret check, and taught why switching off is important in a school assembly. A separate meeting was held for staff to discuss the issue. The children then carried out their own communications campaign making Switch It Off signs, which were placed around the school as a reminder. A second check was then carried out by the eco club who noticed that there had been a slight improvement.
Waste & Recycling
The school has signed up to the red bin scheme from local council and are recycling paper. Cardboard and other recyclables are being taken by teachers to local centres and stamps are collected for the guide dogs for the blind
Gardening club & Wildlife
The school has its own Wormery and compost bins available to discard of organic waste and produce compost to be used on the gardens. The children receive fresh fruit and vegetables everyday as part of a healthy schools initiative but once finished, any waste is disposed of in the wormery to be turned into the compost.
Armed with plastic bags the children went round the school grounds collecting the fallen autumn leaves to recycle into compost. Each child then took their bag of leaves home and put in a shaded spot to rot down for their parents to use as compost the following year.
The children have also been learning how to grow potatoes with a little help from The British Potatoes Councils grow your own potatoes scheme . The schooled registered onto the scheme and received two varieties of seed potato and a £5.00 garden centre voucher to get them started.
Communication
Communication of the work the children are doing to help their environment has been carried out through a number of channels. The school has a newsletter, and web site which both have contained eco school news as well as letters going home to parents. The main channel however has been the children themselves with parents reporting back that they have been told off by their children for not recycling correctly or switching off lights.
What Has Worked
The schools feels very positive towards its eco school status and feel that all projects attempted to date have been very successful. The children are very positive when it comes to eco club and are happy to share their knowledge of recycling and composting to visitors and even parents. The school has taken on a successful community approach.
The Future
Future projects which have been identified by the school and eco committee is the creation of a vegetable garden and wildlife area, however due to work being carried out at the schools premises this may not take place for some time.
| Green Flag: | 1,179 |
| Silver: | 3,922 |
| Bronze: | 4,642 |
