Sort the Rubbish Out From the Bottom Up

I am a huge fan of the Eco-Schools project and have been watching it go from strength to strength over the past few years.

I believe if we get our children into a confident green groove at an early age, they stand a good chance of stepping into adulthood with the right approach to sustainable living and they can also help to re-educate apathetic parents and whip them into shape!

Eco-Schools is an international award programme that guides schools on their sustainable journey, providing a framework to help embed these principles into the heart of school life.

It’s one of five environmental education programmes run internationally by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) and there are 46 countries around the world that run the Eco-Schools programme, linking more than 40,000 schools – from the UK to France, from Morocco to South Africa. Eco-Schools is administered in England by ENCAMS; in Scotland by Keep Scotland Beautiful; in Wales by Keep Wales Tidy; and in Northern Ireland by Tidy Northern Ireland.

Joining the Eco-Schools programme is free and it makes tackling sustainable issues manageable and easy for all schools, whether they are children’s centres, nurseries, primary schools, secondary schools or schools with special status.

Once registered, schools follow a simple seven-step process which helps them to address a variety of environmental themes, ranging from rubbish reduction and waste to healthy living and biodiversity.

Children are the driving force behind Eco-Schools – they lead the eco-committee and help carry out an audit to assess the environmental performance of their school. Through consultation with the rest of the school and the wider community it is the pupils that decide which environmental themes they want to address and how they are going to do it. Measuring and monitoring is an integral part of the Eco-Schools programme, providing schools with all the evidence they need to really shout about their environmental success.

Schools work towards gaining one of three awards – Bronze, Silver and the prestigious Green Flag award, which symbolises excellence in the field of environmental activity.  Bronze and Silver are both self accredited through this website and Green Flag is externally assessed by ENCAMS.

I’ve been nurturing my local primary school along and they’ve proudly achieved Silver status and are well on their way to holding the first Green Flag in our county, which will give us a great reason to throw a (non-plastic) party!

If you are keen to get your school involved in this work of eco-genius, drop an email to your head teacher and get some dialogue going. 

Do a schools search on the Eco-Schools website.

Do keep us informed of your progress here on the blog!

Rubbishly yours,
TSx

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