Congratulations!!!

Fantastic work Green Team!

We are very pleased to tell you that you and your Eco-Committee at Owlsmoor Primary School have been awarded an Eco-Schools Green Flag.

We reviewed your application and noted the following:

We like your approach to selecting the Eco-Committee members. Children that were interested in the environment were selected by their teachers or if more than one child in a class was interested, the teacher held a vote. We like that children who were interested had to write a speech, or make and talk through a poster. We like that you encourage the students to take minutes at meetings. It is great to hear you report that this has improved the confidence of some of your children as writers (writing for a purpose) and also improved general literacy skills (spelling, grammar, speaking and listening, etc) and teamwork. This approach demonstrates an educational and inclusive approach to the programme. It is great that you have encouraged the students to take ownership of the project and that you are also promoting democratic values in this way! We also like how the Eco-Committee members communicate with each other and to internal and external stakeholders through using a variety of methods including reporting back to classes using PowerPoints and through assemblies. You also use your lovely colourful and eye-catching Eco-Board and a range of posters! It is great that you communicate with each other through using a variety of methods including through the school newsletters, whole school homework tasks and songs! This is really fun, informing and involving and shows how valued and embedded the Eco-Schools programme is in your school. It was really great to read how your Environmental Review provided the basis for the projects in your Action Plan. The Environmental Review also clearly highlighted areas that you needed to improve on and it is great that your overall approach generated ideas for changes that you could make, as this demonstrates a reflective and considered approach to your Eco-Schools work. We love hearing that the review focused the minds of your Green Team which translated into the ideas for your action plan. It is also great that the implementation of your action plan, in turn, raised awareness across the school. You’ve clearly taken efforts to connect your biodiversity, energy and waste projects happening across the school and embedding work into curriculum and everyday school life in a really impactful way. This is really inspiring and clever. Your Action Planning is great and really detailed! The actions that you planned out were SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound). This is important as it helps to achieve progress and empower your Eco-Committee. It was also great to see accountability and monitoring and evaluation clearly marked in your Action Plans and that you identify actions in detail. Excellent work! We also thought your ’GREEN” mnemonic Eco-Code was fun and inclusive! It was punchy and creative, setting out tangible and accessible calls to action your whole school can get behind! Your curriculum links were really creative. We like hearing how on Earth Day, all your children learned about endangered animals through online resources. Following discussions in class, each child voted for an animal to adopt through WWF and you followed this up with the school adopting a Snow Leopard. We love to hear that the children learned about the 7Rs of sustainability and that each child in the school made a fridge magnet of the 7Rs to take the message home to their families. We love this approach to pedagogy and that you mix theory and practical action in this way. It is wonderful to hear you approach eco topics in a fresh and relevant way, and is a great way to encourage children to take ownership of local environmental issues. You've also clearly looked both internally and externally and engaged with a wide range of different stakeholders, including that you worked with your local authority, your PTA, the WWF and campaigns such as Earth Day. This kind of work is a great example of the collaborative approach we will all need to adopt to combat pollution in the environment - your application made us feel really positive for the future! Your achievements this year have been wonderful! For instance, it is great to hear that you have built a large bug hotel and mini bug hotels! You have also planted insect-friendly plants and a new tree, put up bird boxes and bird feeders too. Hopefully you and your children will enjoy seeing what a difference these plants and all your other efforts make to your day to day school lives. It is great to hear that you have purchased litter pickers and that all the children love to use them to pick litter! These efforts all truly make the Eco-Schools initiative an integral part of your school life. Congratulations to everyone for the great work you have managed to do. You should all be very proud of your amazing work and the great application you have submitted. You've really earned your Green Flag Award accreditation!

As always THANK YOU very much for your hard work, we are so proud of all our schools and the collective achievements they have made to protect our planet for future generations. We look forward to working with Owlsmoor Primary School again next academic year to help you expand on your eco-actions and successes of this year.

Have a great summer break,

The Eco-Schools Team