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. 

The ocean starts here...

Litter picking around our school can help to reduce plastics reaching the oceans through our drains. Thank you to all the children who volunteered to litter pick at lunch time today.

Lichen hunting!

The children in Forest school had great fun looking for different types of lichen around the school grounds. Sustainable Schools Officer, Amber Titchner taught the children that these tiny plants can tell us about the pollution levels in the area. The orange lichens live in polluted air, green lichens need really clean air and grey lichens can live with a small amount of pollution. The children found mostly grey lichen, however they did spot some orange lichen in the woodland walk way. The children noticed that this lichen was in an area very close to the busy Paynes road. This work is part of the Schools Clean Air project that we are taking part in this year.

Keeping our school grounds tidy and litter free!

The children understand how dangerous litter can be to wildlife, as well as being unpleasant to look at. Well done to all the children who volunteered to help pick up litter at lunch time- you did an amazing job! 

Bikeability training

The children in Year 5 and 6 were lucky enough to have instructors come in to teach them cycling skills. This included supporting children who were non-riders, learning how to carry out basic bike safety checks and the more confident riders cycling around on the local roads. We were  able to borrow bikes and helmets so that  all children could have an opportunity to join in.

Action planning!

The Eco warriors have spent two meetings thinking of all the positive changes they would like to make to make our school more environmentally friendly. These ideas have been used to create our action plan for the year. We can't wait to get started!

The Eco warriors have chosen the following as their focus topics for this academic year:

Transport

Water

Marine

Walktober!

Well done to all our families who walked, cycled, scooted or parked & strode to school this month! Thank you for the photos and caption of these active journeys for our display. It is lovely to share all the positive experiences which include looking for spiders and snails, spotting yellow cars and enjoying the seasonal changes. 

School Clean Air Project

This year we are excited to be taking part in the Southampton City Council 'School Clean Air project'. The aim of this project is to develop the children's understanding of air pollution including what causes it, how we can monitor it and how to we can help to reduce it. The first part of the project was to carry out a travel survey outside of the school gates, finding out how our families travel to school. 

Eco warriors

Our new team of Eco Warriors met twice over this first autumn half term, working hard to complete an Environmental Review. This review highlights areas where we are doing well with eco issues, as well as areas were we feel we could improve. We scored lots of points for our work on transport, the school grounds, waste and litter!