An Eco-School
Over the last year we have been working hard to maintain our current status as a Green Flag Eco School and with the help of our whole school topic, we were fortunate enough to recieve a Green Flag with Merit!
This year in particular, the Eco Committee Members and the Eco Warriors have gone behind the scenes to try and find out the why's and how's that go into our energy and sustainability at Hillcross and think of ways to improve this.
The Eco-Schools global scheme ( https://www.eco-schools.org.uk/ ) encourages school communities to make positive environmentally-friendly changes.
Ootiboo - Eco:Connect
A new initiative that we have taken on this year is in partnership with Ootiboo and is called Eco:Connect. This project poses a question from an environmental scientist or sustainability expert on an important ecology topic. The question is designed to encourage debate and research among students. The aim is to connect the children with the changemakers of today, in order to give them a voice and inspire them to be the changemakers of tomorrow.
Our first question was from Mark Buckley, a key figure in the fight against climate change. He asked
If you could write your own Sustainable Development Goal Manifesto, but for January 1st, 2051, what would it look like?
Here is Hillcross's collective response:
Eco Warriors
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Met regularly and shown a real passion for sustainability.
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Carried out a sustainability audit at the start and end of the academic year.
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Initiated litter picking and energy saving roles within the classes and year groups
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Created a pupil led newsletter which we hope to further develop in the coming year
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Spoke in assemblies about Eco Events they have arranged (e.g. Crew Energy Cafe)
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Looked at subject curriculum grids for the half-term and identified lessons and topics that had sustainability links in order to support the echo newsletters
Eco Committee
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Analysed the Geography curriculum alongside the Geography Lead to pinpoint where, within this curriculum, we are touching on sustainability and other Eco issues.
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Drafted some whole school topic lesson ideas for teachers to deliver during our final half-term.
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Created their own Collective Worship PowerPoint that was shared by Almaz, the Eco Lead, prior to the launch of the Whole School topic. This introduced the topic of sustainability and included the reasons behind our Whole School Topic Launch Day, Wear it Wild.
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Created their own Eco Code which directly links to our Hillcross Values.
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Put together some questions to ask the business manager, Ruth, to help identify areas of need and work on ways to tackle them.
To find out more about our Sustainability focused Whole School Topic, What a Wonderful World, follow the link below:
What a Wonderful World
Follow the link to find out what we have previously done to help us on our Green Flag journey.
