Congratulations to Oldfleet Primary School on gaining their Eco Schools Green Flag award with Merit.
This is what the Eco Schools Assessors had to say
"It's wonderful that you have appointed such a representative Eco-Committee, this shows your school’s excellent commitment to both the programme and the eco-cause. It’s great to see that you had such a group of eager, enthusiastic volunteers. It was also wonderful to see that they were supported by two members of staff.
We love that you kept minutes from your meetings and that they helped to track, guide and prompt your activity. It was unfortunate that your young people were not able to be responsible for completing those meeting minutes – but we were delighted to see them so interested and engaged. This helps them develop new skills and is a real mature and professional approach. Great work!
It was wonderful to see how completing your Environmental Review helped to raise the level of awareness in your school and helped your Eco-Committee to identify the issues and spot gaps in your school's existing environmental activity. It was also brilliant to read that the Environmental Review helped your pupils appreciate everything that your school is already doing to benefit our environment and identify areas to work on in the future.
Your Action Plan shows that your Eco-Committee have carefully considered how they can involve their entire school in their planned Eco-Schools’ activities to achieve maximum impacts and raise awareness amongst their school community. We love the range of activities that you and your Eco-Committee planned for delivery. The fact that they cover both indoor (a second-hand clothes sale and recycling batteries and crisp packets) and outdoor (regular litter-picks, building animal and bird feeders and fresh planting around your pond) activities is excellent.
It was also great to see accountability and a monitoring scheme clearly marked in your Action Plan, although we were surprised there was no Evaluation system in place. Great work though! Your Curriculum Link examples are imaginative, practical and fun, making environmental education accessible and engaging, well done! We’re really impressed at how you’ve linked environmental issues to a variety of curriculum areas.
We loved seeing the excellent photos of your new planters, the pupil’s litter survey and of them enjoying their activities. This is a great example of layering in sustainability and climate change into your studies. We loved reading about how you had incorporated learning about global issues firmly into the Geography and Science Curriculum in your school. Great work!
A challenge for next year might be expanding this to incorporate these issues into other areas of learning like English, Maths, Art or D&T! Your Eco-Board is great. Your board is incredibly visual and engaging and promotes your work in a very attractive way.
We loved hearing how active your Eco-Committee was in communicating their activities school-wide with both class feedback and use of the school social media as well as the Eco-board itself. These all combine to make a great approach! We are certain that your pupils will have greatly benefitted from your involvement with such outside organisations as Yorkshire Water, Ideal Heating and Fareshare, who helped to teach your students about energy and waste.
The parent quote is a great testament to the work that you are doing with your Eco-Committee, that they are taking their Eco-Schools work home with them and getting their families on board is something to be proud of! Your Eco-Code is really smart and concise. It's a great message and its punchy nature will definitely help it be processed by everyone passing by your Eco-Board.
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 various superb recycling and biodiversity initiatives all nicely stand out!
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!"
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