Big Walk and Wheel 2025!

We are excited to be taking part in the Big Walk and Wheel again this year! Teachers will be recording how pupils come to school each day and we could even win prizes for our school if there are enough active journeys. Travelling actively to school helps keep pollution levels down in our school and local community and is good for our mental health and well-being!

Our Eco Code

The Eco Warriors are excited to share their Eco Code which is displayed around school. The Eco Code shares the Eco Warriors priorities for this academic year.

Blue Influencers

The children in Blue influencers after-school club have certainly been busy! They have been learning all about rivers; the creatures that live in them, the names for different parts and  how we can help to protect them. One way we can help is to think about our water use at home. The children played water use game- using a bottle of water and spoon, they answered different questions about their own water use, emptying different spoons of water depending on their answer. For example, if they turned off the tap when they cleaned their teeth they emptied one spoon of water but if they left the tap running, they emptied 6 spoons of water. The children then compared how much water they had left in their bottle at the end. It really made them think about saving water.

Here are some of the ways we talked about helping to save water at home:

• re-using dishwasher to water plants

• having a short shower rather than a bath

• washing fruit/veg in a bowl of water rather than running it under the tap

• washing the car with a bucket of water rather than using a hose

• only using the washing machine for a full load

RSPB School's Birdwatch

The children really enjoyed taking part the RSPB School Birdwatch. They were lucky enough to see lots of bird this year. We spotted starlings, gulls, a magpie and a crow!

School Clean Air project

The Eco Warriors met with Amber Titchener (SCC Air Quality Officer) to look at air pollution data for around our school. We talked about what might be causing all this pollution and why some months have higher levels than others. The children were pleased to see that the air pollution levels have gone done a bit from last year- but we still have work to do!

Litter picking

Well done to all the children who volunteered to help do our first litter pick of the year! We collected 400g of litter from around the playground.

Our topics this year

The Eco Warriors have been hard at work this autumn term. They have applied for a grant from the Linnean Society to purchase things such as bee feeders and bug homes to increase biodiversity in our school grounds, as well as completing an Environmental Review. From our annual Environmental Review, the Eco Warriors have chosen the following topics to focus on this academic year:

Litter

Marine

Energy

Clean Air Assembly

Amber Titchener, from the School Clean Air project, came to our assembly to talk to the children about air pollution and active travel. She invited the children who helped with our travel survey to talk about what they had seen and shared their survey results. The children were rewarded a keyring for their hard work!

Clean Air Project

We are happy to be continuing our work on the School Clean Air project again this school year (2024-2025). We started the year with a new travel survey. A big thank you to the children who came into school extra early this morning to make a tally of how children travelled to school. We were pleased to see more families walking (compared to our survey in October 2023) and less cars being used too!

The Pollution Solution!

The year 5s enjoyed an interactive theatre experience from The Big Wheel theatre group. The show was about school travel plans, transport choices and how they affect our health and the environment. The show taught the children about global warming – how our transport choices affect the world, the impact of traffic, air pollution and congestion in the local area and why walking, cycling and scooting are almost always the best way to get around and how to do this safely.

Travel survey

Thank you to the year 5s who helped to collect data on how families travel to school. The children conducted a second survey (we did the first one back in the autumn term) by standing at the school gates and recoding how many families walked, scooted, cycled or drove to school. They also kept a tally of passing cars and cars that were idling (running the engine whilst the car is parked). See the document below for our results...

WaterAid

As part of our Water topic, the Eco warriors decided to raise money for the charity Water Aid. We had a whole school assembly all about WaterAid and the amazing work that they do. The children were shocked to find out that 771million people do not have access to water close to their home, and that some people are forced to drink dirty water as they have no other choice.

On World Environmental day, everyone was invited to wear something blue or green and bring in a small donation.

We raised £210 for WaterAid!

Clean air routes to school

Families can use the map below to choose less polluted routes when they walk, cycle and scoot to school.

Look at our fantastic new banners!

The banner on Waterloo road shows clean air routes for families to cycle, scoot, walk or park & stride to school.

The banner next to the Mansion road internal gate reminds families not to idle when dropping off or picking up from school to reduce air pollution. Well done to Aimee and Neha who had their designs chosen for this banner!

Love your Journey competition

Well done to Neha who was awarded a prize for her entry in the 'Love your journey' competition- drawing and writing about what she loves about her active travel to school each day.  

Recording all the rubbish collected!

Well done to the Eco group for braving the rain and completing another litter pick. The children then weighed the rubbish and recorded it on a chart. At the end of the year we will be able to see how much rubbish we have saved from polluting the local environment and our oceans.

Clean air workshop!

The Eco warriors were lucky enough to have a workshop on clean air. This was hosted by Tom who works for an eco company called CAG consultants. The children used maps of the local area to identify the most polluted areas and designed pictures to be used on a clean air map. Two of the Eco warriors were able to go out into the local area and measure pollution levels. They recorded the results and compared the pollution levels in different areas. We were surprised that the levels in the local park were the same as Waterloo road!

The Big Walk and Wheel 2024!

We are taking part in the annual Big Walk and Wheel which encourages families to travel actively to school. Each day classes will record how many children walked, scooted or cycled to school and these results will be submitted. As well as being good for mental health and well-being, active travel helps reduce pollution levels around our school and local community. There is also the chance to win some great prizes if lots of people take part!

School Clean Air project

The Eco warriors have had two meetings with Amber Titchener (Sustainable Schools Officer) and Rachel Oliver (Sustainable Transport Officer) to work on the School Clean Air project. The children have looked at travel data for the school and  pollution data from the Airly monitor in the playground. They used this data to create bar charts and talk about reasons for the results. The children then discussed what they can do to help encourage active travel to school.