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
This September, Eco Council have been helping to keep our school a clean, tidy and safe place for the adults, children and animals that come into the playground. They spent some of their lunchtime picking up litter. They were very focused and did a great job!
This March, the Eco Council children have been putting new plants in the planters. These are to attract butterflies and bees now that spring has come. They have one planter per class and it is their responsibility to water it and take care of it. They worked really hard and did a great job!
The Eco Council are worried that adults are parking their cars outside our school and leaving their engines running. This is called idling engines. Eco Council have been discussing why this is a bad thing:
1. When the engine is running, gas comes out of the car and it is not good because it contains carbon dioxide.
2. Carbon dioxide is bad for our lungs and health
3. Idling wastes money because it burns petrol for no reason
4. When engines are running it is loud and it stops people from hearing other cars coming past.
The Eco Council have organised a competition for children to design a poster telling adults to turn their engines off when their cars have stopped. Children can use the facts above or research their own facts and include pictures too. We have extended the entry date to Friday 4th March, please hand in entries to the school office or your class teacher. The children will vote on the poster they like the most and the winning poster will be enlarged and put up outside the school.
January saw the first meeting for 2022 with our new members of Eco Council.
They walked around the outdoor areas and made decisions about the tasks that they could carry out to make the school a better place for local wildlife. The children thought that they could pick up litter, put new plants in the planters and tidy the Rainbow Garden. They are going to be very busy!
This month, the Eco-Council went plogging for the first time. This involved them picking up litter from around the school site using litter pickers. They collected three bags of litter and it made a real difference to the school environment. They will soon start plogging in the local area too!
Last year, Eco Council worked hard with Mrs Docwra and Miss Biscoe. They planted out the new troughs with plants that would attract butterflies and bees.
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