Eco-Schools News –Spring 2011

Energy:

The Green Team have managed to put up over 150 notices around the school reminding staff and students to turn off lights and other appliances when not in use. From March 1^st our Year 8 maths teams will be once again monitoring electricity consumption in the school as part of Project Electric. We hope that staff make every effort to ‘switch off’ and that we find a marked difference in consumption in comparison to November. Our Green Team will also be surveying departments after school to see how vigilant staff are being. Watch this space for the results!

 Kitchen Garden:

This month the Green Team acted as judges  for our Kitchen Garden Design Competition and Year 7 students have proved themselves to be the best designers! Well done to Rebecca Thomason who won first prize. Worthy runners-up were Loreta Liandanskaite and Mark Nicholls.

Items awarded as part of the Morrisons Grow Your Own Scheme have started to arrive. We are in receipt of a potato barrel and an apple tree. The Green Team are working on a planting schedule and work in the Kitchen Garden will begin this month. As well as a herb garden and wild flowers the team plan to grow a variety of vegetables in raised beds.

School  Environment:

The crocuses that the Green Team planted in September have finally come up, with some providing a lovely mauve walkway into the school at the community entrance. Our daffodils in the school courtyard are almost ready to bloom and the Green Team have more potted daffodils to place around the school.

We have received 25 saplings from BTCV including maples and crab-apples. The trees will be planted shortly at the back of the school.

Recycling:

We now have 25 60L green paper recycling bins placed around the school, providing a more practical and professional way of recycling paper. Once the dining hall has been fully refurbished we plan to find a way of recycling aluminium cans as well.

Our RAG BAG scheme is going well; we had our first collection and received a cheque for £51, which will go directly towards our Kitchen Garden Project. If you live locally and have any spare clothes, sheets or curtains that you no longer need please drop them off at reception. If you would like to know more about the scheme go to www.rag-bag.co.uk

Go Green Week

21^st-27^th March is climate week; the school’s VMG programme is entitled Go Green Week and there will be a variety of activities going on. A team of students across all year groups will be taking part in the official climate week mini-challenge. See www.climateweek.com for more details. We also hope to mark Earth Hour by switching off the lights on Friday 25^th March for an hour, as we did last year.

Eco-Schools News – Autumn 2010

The newly-named Green Team plans to make this academic year the most active yet. After meeting all the criteria we were awarded our Eco-Schools Bronze Award back in May and hope to receive our Silver Award by March 2011.

Reaching some of our main targets from our Action Plan, we have:

·         started to monitor electricity consumption; hourly consumption is on display in the student social area.  A Year 8 maths project will commence in November with students analysing weekly, monthly and annual consumption, and monitoring this over a four-month period. Their results and calculations will be used in a campaign to reduce our electricity consumption as much as we can, saving money and being more environmentally responsible.

·         ensured that the majority of staff and students in the school are now recycling paper and we have ordered larger, more durable bins for a more professional collection scheme, due to be launched very soon.

·         begun to plan our kitchen garden project, which is due to start in February  2011.  We will be launching a competition to search for a winning design.

If you’d like a copy of the full action plan or our environmental review, please contact  Miss Jolly (Eco-Schools Co-ordinator).

OTHER NEWS:

Our sixth-form geographers have been working closely with a number of primary schools in the area, helping them with a variety of environmentally-friendly projects. More details to follow.

Students from the Green Team were very busy on Open Day and planted 250 crocus bulbs as well as giving the courtyard garden a general tidy-up. In November we will also be planting some daffodils and are looking forward to how nice the school will look in spring!

Vouchers have been arriving thick and fast for the Morrison’s Grow Your Own Scheme. We have reached our target and will be ordering a variety of garden equipment. Thanks to everyone who collected vouchers for us!

Watch this space for news of a Rag Bag scheme, art & design projects and more cross-curricular projects linked to sustainable schools!

Spring 2010

The Eco-Schools group has gone from strength to strength since January 2010. We’ve held regular meetings, completed a comprehensive environmental review, and created a detailed action plan – which all means we can now apply for our Eco-Schools Bronze Award.

Our main targets from the Action Plan include:

• Starting to monitor electricity consumption

• Reducing electricity consumption – lighting and computers

• Recycling used paper

• Setting up Eco-Garden Group made up of pupils, parents and teaching staff

• Writing a School Eco Code

• Recruiting parents and governors into Action Team

If you’d like a copy of the full plan or review, please contact  Miss Jolly (Eco-Schools Co-ordinator).

Students and staff  joined millions around the world when we switched off our classroom lights on Friday 26^th March to mark Earth Hour.  Run by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Earth Hour involves switching off all lights for an hour to raise awareness of our energy usage and its link to climate change. The WWF describes it as  “a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future.”

The school Paper Recycling scheme is well underway with almost 40 classrooms and offices reusing and recycling their paper. Members of the Eco-Schools team are running fortnightly collections and are managing the operation well so far.  We hope that all areas of the school will be serviced by the end of April.

Watch this space for news of plans for a school Eco-Garden, a sixth-form Geography project for sustainable schools and a fashion show with a difference!