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Eco Schools
What is an Eco School?
The Eco School awards encourage schools to think about a range of areas including waste reduction, energy saving, healthy living, water, biodiversity, transport and travel. Full accreditation is achieved through an audited programme of commitment and activity by the school and students.This academic year, Countess Gytha will be focusing on how we can care and respect the environment around us and help us all to become sensible citizens that are able to make valuable decisions to make us more globally aware and keep our Earth alive to survive!
Our Eco Warriors 2023/2024
Eco Warriors are a team of children passionate about protecting and saving our planet. They understand how important our planet is and that we must do our best to care for it. The Eco-Warriors work together as a team to make positive changes to our school to make it a more environmentally friendly place and think about how we can help our community become more green. They raise our awareness about sustainability and encourage everyone to be good at recycling and saving energy. We encourage good habits for the future.
They actively promote:-
Recycling:
- Paper and card
- Batteries
- Textiles
- Printer cartridges
- Food
Saving energy:
- Switching off lights
- Switching off ICT equipment, rather than leaving it on standby
- Closing doors to keep heat in
Conserving energy:
- Water saving push top taps
- Taking care of our equipment so that it lasts well
- Using resources in a way that minimises waste
Care for the environment
- Encourage walking rather that using cars to travel to school.
- Using litter bins to keep our school and local area clean
- Managing our raised beds, planters and Environmental areas to be rich habitats
Our personalised Eco Code for the whole school
Council members meeting with School Governor to inform re actions so far
BIODIVERSITY
Outdoor Area Update March 2024
Classes welcome new additions!
Thanks to the Eco-Council, each class now have a new addition! Classes will take on the responsibility for caring for and nurturing their newly acquired plant.They will set up a rota for watering their plants and we all look forward to watching our plants grow over the next few months.
Miss Tropicana receiving tender loving care!
Birdwatch 2024
we have taken part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. Well done to all the children and their families who took part on the RSPB Birdwatch this year. We will add these to our overall total of the different varieties we have observed in our school grounds.
In Eco Club we made bird feeders as part of the British Birdwatch Challenge. We thought carefully about what birds need at this time of year to keep themselves warm in the cold months. We hung the feeders on the trees in the school grounds.
We have created insect habitats and bug hotels and rock piles around our environmental areas.Planting wildlife friendly seeds and plants on our wild green area to promote bees and butterflies to our school.Along with this,we have helped to create animal habitats such as bird houses, feeders and in the Summer term we are hoping to have a clean up of our pond area.
KS1 children - Environmental activities with Mrs Hewlett
Look closely at what we found...
Upcycled bottle bird feeder
Assembling our own Bugingham Palace
Our Super Bug Hotel in Allotment
Two new bird boxes added to our environment
Stage One of our Bugingham Palace Project!
Our focus for Understanding the World has been animal habitats. We have spoken about different habitats and identified animals which would be suited to live in them. The children were super at explaining why they are each best suited to their habitats. We have enjoyed this focus this week and have had lots of fun teaching Mr Gordon about all the things we have learnt!
Foundation Stage - Understanding the World Around Us
Diary Dates with Environmental actions and updates
Nature Detectives
John Muir Award - Year 6 children to attend sessions at Carymoor in June- July 2024 to attain this environmental award.
ENERGY
Our Eco Committee ( Energy Monitors) daily check classrooms to ensure lights are turned off and doors and windows are closed in the winter to save energy.
Mr Inskip, our caretaker, monitors our energy consumption and informs the eco committee once a term on any changes.
We have held a poster competition to help change the behaviours of leaving unnecessarily lights on in the classroom and these posters have been placed on every light switch in the school to act as polite reminders.
Heating is turned off whilst school is not in use.
Outside security lights are on a timer system to turn off and on when necessary.
All lights work on a sensor of movement and will turn off automatically.
GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
Environmental themed Poetry Week
This week the school have been busy at work crafting their poems for the school's annual poetry competition. This year, the theme has been 'Animals Matter'. Thank you to the lovely PTFA who will be judging the poems, and we look forward to finding out the winners next week.
Influencer Profiles made during Internet Safety Week 2024
Our Eco Display and library with recommended reads for Environmental focus
Two new KS1 books for our Eco Library - April 2024
Eco Council and School Council deliver whole school assembly to inspire children to gain Green Blue Peter Badge
Eco team members receive their Green Blue Peter Badges
Paddington’s Postcards bring families and children together to learn about the world through fun activities. Through participating in this activity helps create a better world for every child.
Paddington sends a personalised postcard to Pendragon class every month.
Across the 12-months, they’ll get to discover new countries and learn how other children live all around the world. All while making a difference, as the donation goes towards the vital work to keep children safe.
Paddington Adventures - Knowing about the environment worldwide
Paddington’s Adventures - Display documenting travel and information on each country
Amazon Rainforest Project Year 5 & 6
Cambodia Friendship Tree Created
It was lovely to see our leaves adorn the walls of our link school in Cambodia. The leaves they sent to us have been added to our own friendship tree.
Sent from our link school in France with our pen pal letters
Poetry Competition - Theme Animals in our World
Poetry winners displayed on wall in main corridor
Science Posters for Science Week March 2024
Our Flower Garden Album sent to France and Mexico
The finishing touches to our flowers grown in our garden sketches were completed this week. This has enabled us to use our watercolours to add colour and further detail and place these into a book to share with our friends in Mexico and France.
Earth Day
As part of this year's Earth Day, the children came to school wearing an item of green clothing and participated in a virtual assembly delivered by David Attenborough's Planet Earth Team. They also created 'Earth Pledges' which included promises about how they are going to contribute to maintaining and protecting our planet and local environment.
School newsletter promoting local environmental opportunities
HEALTHY LIVING
At Countess Gytha, mindfulness is taught as part of the PSHE curriculum, alongside this every class enjoys a six week block of yoga sessions as part of the extended curriculum.
KS1 enjoy having fruit and vegetables at breaktime and this helps to teach the importance of eating healthy to help maintain a healthy lifestyle.
Within the Science curriculum, children are taught about eating heathy and the importance of keeping fit and participating in outdoor activities.Play Leaders enjoy the role of teaching the children the importance of playing together to kit fit and healthy during lunchtime sessions.
This year we have had Year 2 and Year 4, visit one of our local secondary schools to participate in an active learning afternoon through sport. They have participated with other primary schools and have enjoyed making friends further afield than just with their peers at school.
Reception children have looked at healthy and unhealthy food. They were able to sort these into 2 groups and say why they made these choices. following on from this topic they held a healthy cafe to share their food they had prepared with their families.
Healthy Living - Science curriculum Year 4 & 5
Healthy Eating Cafe
The children really enjoyed preparing the yummy food our Healthy Eating Cafe. We made pitta pizzas, cheese and pineapple sticks, veg sticks and dip and also a fruit platter. The children did some excellent chopping, spreading and arranging of ingredients!
What a lovely selection of food to enjoy with our grown ups!
Healthy Cafe Foundation Stage
LITTER
Eco committee along with volunteers from all classes have started a general litter pick around the school parameters.These litter monitors have been out and about at playtimes and lunchtimes in the school grounds picking up and litter that has been blown or dropped onto our environment.This is vital at the preset time due to lambs being in the field adjacent to our playground.
Thank you to everyone who are using all the bins provided as this helps to keep our environment beautiful for all to enjoy.
Assemblies have been led by the Eco committee to discuss our school actions and the role of the litter monitors.
Whole School Assembly
The Big Plastic Count March 2024
The Big Plastic Count highlights the national and world plastic problem, inspiring schools to take decisive action using their fantastic resources to embed into the children's learning. It has taught every child and adult at our school that however big or small everyone can do their bit to make an impact on our world. This is why we will be taking part again in The Big Plastic Count.
The Eco Committee joined Mr Gordon in delivering a school assembly to inform the children of our participation as a school and how the children could also take part with their families at home.
Committee member inserting our school data Big Plastic Count
Lancelot Class Plastic Footprint
Our link school in Cambodia have shared photos of their recent clean up. Here is there message:
Thank you to our G3/G4 students who came to school this Sunday morning. They worked as a team to clean up the trash along a long stretch of road in front of the school. We collected 16 bags of trash. A few of the students commented that plastic is a big problem in Kep.
MARINE
Adopting a turtle
At the beginning of the school year, it was decided that with some money that we had in our budget we would adopt a sea turtle from the WWF on behalf of the school. We received an information booklet, adoption certificate and fact files with general information about the plight of the green turtles. Mrs Sherry is able to track our turtle and at present it is enjoying a swim around the Caribbean!
Visiting No.10!
Year 5 and 6 visited Number 10 Downing Street this year and were able to hand deliver a letter they wrote to The Prime Minister regarding their concerns of the amount of plastics in our oceans.
Mexican Embassy Reply to letter sent re plastics in our oceans
We encourage all our children to bring their lunch into school in reusable containers and minimise the use of throw away plastics. Water bottles can be filled throughout the day so cutting down on single use plastic bottles.
SCHOOL GROUNDS
Welly walk
After a sudden change of plans, our welly walk today led us to the allotments at the top of our school field. The children enjoyed putting on their wellies and exploring in a new environment - this was our first time making it up to the allotments and I think it is safe to say that the children are very excited to go up there again!
We looked at the plants that had been growing and even managed to find some baby pumpkins. The children spotted lots of different minibeasts, including wood lice, snails, slugs, caterpillars and even some newts!
Mrs Hewlett and Mrs Crang use the school environmental area for their weekly lessons with each class, who are on a timetabled rota.
Year 1 and Year 2 have panted seeds and have observed them growing over the weeks. They were able to name parts of the plants and were also able to say about the changes that happen to our trees over the seasons.
The whole school is working together to make our outside area look more attractive. we have planted tubs and planters with flowers, bulbs and seeds.A wildflower bank has also been sown to attract bees and butterflies.
Sowing and Planting Seeds for our World Garden
Our purple for polio crocus bulbs are flowering! March 2024
Sala Monkey School in Cambodia share their environmental efforts around their own school. It’s clear to see they love working in the outdoors as much as us.
In February, Our parents are volunteering to come into our environmental area to help dig new raised beds and to have a general tidy up of our allotment area ready for planting.
On what started as a snowy morning for some, staff and parents were able to tidy up our allotment and environmental area ready for the children to start their spring planting.
Sowing and Growing flower and vegetable seeds March 2024
TRANSPORT
Walk to School Week -to follow
Bikeability - June/July - to follow
WASTE
Teachers use Smartboards and save work on our Sharepoint to minimise the use of paper so reducing our own carbon footprint.
Our book swap during World Book Day March 2024
During the recent cold weather, The Eco team has set up a Care and Share coat rail this term. To help out our families in these hard economic times they can help themselves to a coat and if able to do so place the outgrown coat on the rail for others to enjoy. At present the have helped ten families.
Book Swap for World Book Day 2024
Eco paper is used for photocopying
Recycling juice pouches into coin wallets
We have used empty plastic drink bottles to make poppies for our Remembrance Day display enjoyed by the whole school and wider community.
Recycled bottles for Remembrance Day
In the school car park we have a clothes recycling tin where all clothing placed in the tn by the community will help not only our carbon footprint but also raise money for our school too!
Clothing recycling tin
Year 5 and 6 enjoyed a visit from Leonardo Helicopters for this year’s Cool Aeronautics engineering and technology event. Children were tasked with designing a straw rollercoaster and then a weighted boat in groups. Congratulations go to Betsy, Daisy-May, Rothen, Tommy and Emily for being the overall team winners of the day; it is a firm favourite of the children every year and we hope next year we might have the opportunity to visit the Aero centre in Yeovil too!
Recycling modelling with Leonardo DT day
Lords Larder Thank-you letter
Share and Care Rail / Book Swap - insert into school newsletter
Care and Share Rail. To date 15 coats have found new homes!
Wear Green - Go Green Day - Earth Day April 22nd
Carymoor environmental trust - April
What a first day back! We were all lucky enough to have a whole class assembly and individual class workshops led by Carymoor. The workshops reminded us on the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling our waste. Each workshop was enthusiastically delivered making it a memorable experience for all involved.
WATER
We use a water butt to help save water for our own watering of plants in our garden.
Save Water Posters
Self-stopping taps
