Education Business

The Eco-Schools award programme is helping over 60 per cent of schools in this country to become more sustainable. By providing a structured path towards achieving the Bronze, Silver and Green Flag milestones the programme is assisting schools to meet the government’s 2020 sustainability targets.
    
Don’t feel put off by the challenge. Your school is probably meeting more of the sustainable criteria that you think. Tuning of appliances, keeping the school litter free and saving water are some of the first and most important steps to gaining your first award. So let’s get going.

Steps to success
First of all, register your school at www.eco-schools.org.uk. Participating in the programme is free of charge.
    
One of your first tasks will be to form an eco committee involving pupils from the whole school and a teacher. With the help of resources from the website the committee needs to complete an environmental review – to show where the school can make changes, such as to reduce waste and promote recycling or conserve more water. Remember pupils are the leaders of the Eco-Schools programme and teachers should assist but not do all the work!
    
The second step is to make an action plan to make improvements. This often involves planning a project that, although led by the committee will involve the whole school. The committee is responsible for coming up with project ideas and how to measure the success of the work carried out.  
    
The third step is to apply for an award. The work undertaken for your school project can help you get your first award. The Bronze and Silver awards are credited online and The Green Flag award is assessed by the Eco-Schools team. This process is repeated for each award you apply for.

Case studies
Schools such as Stondon Lower School in Bedfordshire took small steps to achieve their Bronze award. Mandy Taylor, Eco-Schools co-ordinator, explains. “Being a small rural school in central Bedfordshire, initially the prospect of Eco-Schools accreditation seemed quite daunting. Many of the case studies on the Eco-Schools website seemed to be on a very large scale. However, we decided to embark on our eco journey; taking small but measurable steps forward.
    
“Our action plan was formulated and many of the ideas were simple but very effective, for example introducing classroom lighting monitors (breaktime/lunchtime), re-using waste paper for wet play, and issuing letters/information electronically via the website. We have just been awarded our Bronze Award and it is hoped we will work towards our Silver Award next term.”

Inspiring pupils
Other schools such as Canon Evans Infant School used lots of different tactics to inspire their pupils. “The children attending the after school eco club became secret energy monitors, making their own badges and investigating what had been left on in the school using a simple tally table. The children were then told the results of the secret check, and taught why switching off is important in a school assembly,” said their Eco-Schools co-ordinator.
    
“The children have also been learning how to grow potatoes with a little help from The British Potatoes Council’s grow your own potatoes scheme. The school registered onto the scheme and received two varieties of seed potato and a £5.00 garden centre voucher to get them started.”   
    
Many schools are pleasantly surprised about how supportive the programme is and the number of different themes they can complete projects on. There are nine themes of the programme from litter to biodiversity and schools can choose which area to focus their work on.
    
Programme manager Andrew Suter says: “We would like to encourage schools to get signed up and benefit from all the support that is available. The programme offers many resources from step by step guides to lesson plans, so that schools and pupils can get the most out of the experience and enjoy the projects that will help them become more sustainable.”

For more information
See more case studies and find out more about the Eco-Schools programme by visiting www.eco-schools.org.uk