Meet Clapgate Primary School’s Eco Committee

The Eco Committee at Clapgate Primary School have been working hard to make their school environment a greener space.

We visited the school to have a chat with the children who are from year groups five and six. The children were eager to share with us what they had been doing. The children were overtly proud of their achievements and excited by the changes they were impementing across their school.

It was refreshing to see young children taking accountability for the environment and also for the younger pupils in the school, acting as role models and correcting actions when needed.

The children had some very interesting facts to share after a trip to Yorkshire Water, including that there are twelve different types of bacteria in our water before it is cleaned. To follow up from this the children are holding an assembly to share tips with the other pupils on how they can all save on water usage.

The Eco Committee have made several changes to their daily school routines and their focus on saving energy, water and food waste is already having a big impact. The committee are ensuring that all lights and white boards are switched off regularly and not left on after leaving a classroom.

The school also composts its food waste and this is used on their allotment. This massively reduces the amount of waste the school ships to landfil each week.

When we asked the pupils questions about why making the school greener was important to them they were all clearly passionate about making their school as environmentally friendly as possible. The children mentioned the chickens the school has, the impact of reducing waste and the financial benefits of being more aware of energy expenditure.

Thanks to the hard work of these pupils and their teacher Miss O’Connell the school is now in the process of applying for the Green Flag Award, and I don’t think that we can argue that their efforts here are more than admirable.

The Eco Committee are even going as far as to look at how the school communicates and conveys information to parents. We spoke to Mia one of the pupils on the Eco Committee, she talked about the eco newsletter they are launching. This will include tips on how to reduce energy, water and food waste. It will then be emailed to parents to save on paper waste and printing costs.

 

This post was written by Jade Belton and James Inge

Photo: Pupils from Clapgate visited Yorkshire Water

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