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.

Plogging

School 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.

In February, the Year 2 children went plogging in Blagdon Park and around the Malden Centre. They collected five bags of rubbish. They sorted the rubbish and recycled what they could.

On one of our previous ‘plogging’ outings, the children collected four bags of rubbish from the bushes outside the Malden Centre. As a result, the Eco Council children have decided that they will write to the Malden Centre to ask that they take responsibility for keeping this area clean, safe and wildlife friendly. In addition, the children are going to ask that the Malden Centre use reusable shoe covers rather than the plastic single use ones that are currently in use. A number of these were pulled from the bushes.

Children's Letters to Malden Centre

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