Local school achieves Eco-School Green Flag with Distinction
Exciting news for St Leonards VA Lower School in Heath and Reach! The school has proudly earned the Eco-School Green Flag with Distinction, which is the highest award possible in the Eco-Schools programme. This fantastic achievement comes after last year's success when the school was given the Green Flag with Merit.
This year, the students have been hard at work focusing on three key areas: Energy, Global Citizenship, and Litter. In the Energy section, class energy monitors help remind everyone to turn off screens and lights when they're not needed. The Eco Council also check lights, screens and taps in communal areas, and motion-sensing lights have been installed in the main corridor to save energy. Plus, the school took part in the Cut Your Carbon initiative, where students came up with great ideas to help reduce everyone's carbon footprints at home.
For Global Citizenship, the eco-council organised a fun fundraising circuit for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Everyone from Early Years to Year 4 got involved, completing laps to raise money and highlight important issues like habitat loss and protecting endangered animals. In April, the whole school also undertook a range of activities during Earth Day. We used this year's theme of 'Our Power, Our Planet' to highlight how our actions on a small, local level can have a big impact on global change in the longer term.
When it comes to tackling litter, the children are very keen! Weekly litter picks are held in the school grounds, and they even organised a local area litter pick, whilst participating in the Great Big School Clean. And let's not forget, all food waste from breaks and lunch is composted and paper and plastic from all over the school recycled so it doesn't end up in landfill.
The entire school community is thrilled with this amazing achievement and is looking forward to continuing this important work in the next academic year.