Eco Schools

Why Become an Eco-School?

Eco-Schools empower students, increase environmental awareness, improve the school environment and create financial savings for schools. It engages the wider local community, links to the curriculum and can help deliver Ofsted requirements.

There are three different awards that a school can apply for: Bronze, Silver and Green Flag. Depending on if you are an ‘Early Years’, ‘Primary’ or ‘Secondary’ school, there are seven different steps to go through and different topics to cover. Such topics include: energy, global citizenship, transport waste, marine, water litter and more. These can all link to the curriculum and help develop the students’ confidence, communications skills and teamwork.

Most schools are likely to have already accomplished the Bronze award level through their current work, so why not get the recognition for achieving this?

For more information please visit the Eco Schools website.

Eco-Schools Starter Activities

Finding a place to start with the Eco-Schools programme can be a little confusing. Thankfully the fantastic folks at the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) have developed a set of lesson plans and starter activities to get you and your pupils heading down the right track. The lesson plans are based on the key Eco-Schools methodologies and themes. These include; climate change, biodiversity and nature, marine and coast or health and wellbeing to just name a few. To have a look at the lesson plans please click here.

Case Study of an Eco-School in Chelmsford

The Cathedral Primary School is a great example of a school in Chelmsford that have achieved a Green Flag rating in July 2019. We recently caught up with one of the teachers at the school to see what impact becoming an Eco-School has had on the pupils, teachers and the wider community:

“Since beginning our Eco-School journey we have seen no end of benefits. The children have embraced the need for a cleaner and greener planet and their passion for protecting the environment has been an inspiration to both their peers and adults. The children have loved the wide variety of opportunities as part of gaining our ‘Green Flag’ status, including setting up an ECO committee, gardening, leading assemblies, litter picking, traffic surveys and external visits to name but a few. The ECO programme has seen children develop their confidence, citizenship, leadership and skills of responsibility and we look forward to seeing how our ECO team will continue to grow from strength to strength.” 

Sign the Plastic Pledge!

If you’re a school in Essex, you can also sign the Essex Plastic Pledge for your school. You will then receive a bi-monthly newsletter full of inspiration from other local schools on how to reduce plastic waste and access to an online resource pack, full of activities and tools to help your school succeed in reducing plastic waste. To find out more check out the Love Essex website.