Our New Eco Code...

The Eco Committee have voted for our new code.

To the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:

We recycle where we can

We've a single-use plastic ban

We save water, we don't waste,

Turn off lights and clean our plates

We recycle where we can

We've a single-use plastic ban.

Enjoy!

We've been awarded the Green Flag Award!

We're very proud of the children in meeting the 7 steps challenges and successfully passing the Green Flag Assessment. We've also just recently had our pond installed with the help of Mr Baker over the summer. If you think you can donate any plants to our pond please drop them off at school for us to add to the pond.

We're launching a small competition where we would like every child to decorate a stone unique to them, to add to the rockery we need to build around the pond in the coming months. We will varnish/protect the stones, and we will also give out prizes for the winning entries judged by the Eco committee.

So get busy being creative!

Mrs Phipps and the Eco Committee

Eco Committee Update 2018-2019

We wanted to give you all an update on our Eco Schools progress this year and let you know a few things in the pipeline for the coming year.

This year has been the second year for the schools Eco Committee and I want to thank everyone who has helped by getting involved in our projects. We launched the first Big Soup Share this year which went really well. As a result the children have planted onions, potatoes, leeks and carrots ready for next time so we can top up the donations with some homegrown vegetables too. We may expand to baking our own bread too so watch this space!

The litter pick was once again well attended and we saw a reduction in the amount of bags collected this time too. We've been conducting our biodiversity checks with the 'Under Our Feet' Science project and we've sent our air samples off for checking which was fortunately very low. We've also been working on being more green both at home and in school, setting up plastic and compost recycling schemes in the playground for the children to use and launching the Eco brick for you all to try at home.

The Toy Sale and Book sale were again a huge success getting unwanted toys recycled or sent off to charity and we've now raised enough to look at applying for Green Flag next year, the Eco Schools highest honour.

So looking to next year we have been very lucky to secure a grant for almost £250 from NEDDC to build a wildlife pond and secure fencing for it in the school grounds. This is an exciting project and we will be asking for lots of local help to dig the pond area and help build it too. If you think you'd be able to help or advise please get in touch with us - the more support we have the more chance we have of making this a success for the children to use year on year.

If you've ever been to the Christmas Tree Festival at the Crooked Spire before you'll know that the tree displays are a beautiful and simple way to showcase local schools and projects. This year we will be exhibiting along an Eco theme our own tree for Barlow School between November 16th to Dec 1st.

We've also got some assemblies and whole school learning set up with the support of the Plastic Free Chesterfield initiative being introduced in schools in the new year. We'll also be having a young entrepreneur visit to show us how he's used washed up netting he's collected from UK beaches to make Eco bracelets. If you happen to find any on your holidays this year and it is safe to collect the twine/thin rope like pieces please do bring it to school in readiness for this project too. 

We're going to work to support Barlow Preschool to begin collecting crisp packets (any brand) flat and emptied for them to send to Terracycle for recycling. See the picture below. If you can bring them to put in the box in the hall we'll drop them off for you.

I'll be looking in to more projects and schemes and will encourage the new Eco Committee to help actively approach local businesses and companies on our behalf to see what more we can do to make changes. If you have any links or would like to support us in the future, please get in touch with me, I do value and need your support.

I want to thank you all again for getting involved this year,

Have a great summer break

Best wishes

Mrs Phipps and the Eco Committee

Our Eco Committee is brand new for 2017-2018 but already we have done so much together. We have now achieved the Silver award and are now looking at how to achieve the top Green Flag award.

Our latest meeting on March 9th involved judging the bird boxes and awarding prizes. Setting up the Waste Week Quiz and Question hunt with posters around school.

Discussing the tickets and sale of these for the Fairtrade hamper next week.

Reviewing the success of the litter pick in school.

Organising for the Eco committee to lead another assembly on March 22nd about 'Waste'.

We met on Thursday 1st February - below is a summary of our current activities.

So far we have completed our School Environment survey and identified our actions from there (see link).

In November we took part in Switch off Fortnight this was a big success and we have since set up enrgy montiors in every classroom to encourage more energy saving. 

https://jointhepod.org/campaigns/switch-off-fortnight-2018

The Eco Committee lead an assembly on the Dangers of Plastics and used it to encourage children to recycle more. We will add a copy of the Power Point soon. If you'd like to look at how else you can help the following link is very interesting with lots of ideas.

https://www.eco-schools.org.uk/interactive-eco-school/

To read about any of our current plans, past or present, please click on the subpages above.