Our Eco Council is made up of two children from each class in Year 1 and Year 2. These children are elected to the role by their class peers. The children in Eco Council are responsible for raising awareness of environmental issues and to explore ways in which the school and the wider school community can become increasingly environmentally friendly.

Our School Environment

In June, the children collected the used batteries that have been brought in for the Great Big Battery Hunt. They counted them and found that we have so far collected 527! These will now be taken to the nearest battery recycling point.

A little while ago, our Eco Council children visited B&Q to purchase some new plants for the school. The manager of B&Q very kindly gifted some of the plants to us and so the children decided to write thank you letters to show them how much they appreciated their generosity and kindness. What a kind thought!

Eco Council had a little trip to B&Q to buy some new plants for the school. The children did such a good job at helping to choose which plants to buy and helped carry them all the way back to school. We would also like to say a huge thank you to the manager at B&Q who kindly gifted some of the plants to us. 

Eco Council has an ongoing responsibility for taking care of the birds and other Burlington wildlife. They filled up the bird feeders and Mrs Easty helped by filling the water tray.

In March, the children also put the hedgehog house in the Rainbow Garden and decided where Mr Williams should put the bat boxes.

In January, the Eco Council children met at lunchtime to go litter picking. They worked so hard and picked up 8 bags of litter! They really care for the environment. Thank you!

In November, the Eco Council children delivered an assembly to all of year 1 and year 2 children. This was to support Cut Your Carbon Month. This is the first time that they have done an assembly and they did an amazing job! 

In January, Eco Council took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch on Friday. They went out to the playground with clipboards and counted all the birds they could see. Amongst these were pigeons, starlings, robins, blue tits, blackbirds, sparrows, magpies and a wren! Afterwards, the children counted up all their results and entered them on to the RSPB website. 

Plogging

Eco Council regularly go on ‘plogging’ outings into the local environment, with the focus of these trips being on collecting rubbish that has been left in inappropriate places. Once collected, the rubbish is brought back to the school and sorted into the glass, plastic and tin cans before these are sent for recycling. At Burlington we are part of a ‘plogging’ school community. All schools log the number of recyclable objects that they have collected and this information is entered onto a site which collates data relating to the hard work and dedication of the children.

If you would like to know more about ‘plogging’, please visit: 

Plog-olution web page

Other Responsibilities

The Eco Council take on a number of responsibilities through the school year. For example, the school have an annual WWF (World Wildlife Fund) Week. During this week, Eco Council children take assemblies to introduce and then draw the week to an end. Eco Council support the children across the school in identifying endangered animals and then deciding upon one animal that the school will adopt. At Burlington we currently adopt a penguin, a sea turtle and a dolphin. Our most recent adoption was a bumble bee. During the week, each Year 2 class carries out a close study of the challenges that a certain endangered animal faces. Each child writes a report reflecting these challenges and this is then shared with the children through a whole school assembly. This approach ensures that children across the school are aware of the challenges faces the natural world and the steps that can be taken to make positive change.

Eco-Schools Award

There are 3 Eco-Schools award levels – Bronze, Silver and Green Flag. We are very proud to hold the Silver Award. This award focussed on strengthening pupil leadership and whole school involvement.

This academic year we are working towards the Green Flag. We will be completing in-depth work on at least 3 of the Eco-Schools 9 topics, one of which must be energy. We will choose the topics dependent on the results of our Environmental Review that we will be carrying out soon.

If you would like to find out more about Eco-Schools log on to:

Eco-Schools web page