02476689392
It all began when Mrs Blackwell our Eco Coordinator spoke to Mr McConville and the senior management team about the amazing opportunities that come along with being an Eco-Friendly school. She explained that as well as helping the environment, the Eco-Schools programme would benefit the pupils at our school. It is designed to empower pupils, raise environmental awareness, improve the school environment and create financial savings. It is pupil-led allowing our children to take ownership of environmental projects. It also would provide our school with many real-life and contextual learning opportunities that link to the National Curriculum. Furthermore, it provides excellent evidence towards the requirements for, Defining spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, enabling children to thrive.
Once she had been given the green light to go ahead, she excited the children, by explaining all about the different projects that we could take part in, along with the awards that our school could gain, if we commit to doing it well. Anyone who wanted to know more could ask questions and everyone who wanted to be considered to lead this amazing team, as a committee member, could write a letter explaining why they thought that they would be good at this and what skills /qualities they could bring to the team in order to be successful.
We are delighted to announce that we have formed our Eco Committee.
Adult members are:
Children members are:
*Reception and Nursery children will be taking part in whole-class activities mainly during their Welly Wednesday sessions.
The 10 Eco Projects that we are looking forward to learning about are:
We are taking part in the Big Battery Hunt, which aims to recycle as many batteries as possible.
“Under the supervision of an adult, collect as many used batteries as possible and send them into school to Mrs Blackwell.
Please ask your parents, relatives, neighbours, or even local shops, libraries or community centres to get involved as the competition closes on Friday 24th June.
So far we have registered 3822 batteries; this is an amazing amount of recycling.
Thank you for your continued support.
The Eco Council have been privileged to welcome a very important visitor to their school.
On Wednesday they delivered a litter assembly to the whole school and they invited everybody to take part in a litter pick throughout the grounds in order to make the school spic and span for our Ma’am. Everybody rose to the occasion and our royal visitor was suitably impressed. During her speech, she thanked everyone for their hard work and recognised all of their efforts to make this school a greener more sustainable place.
Last Friday, each of the eight schools in our MAC took eight children to an event at Corpus Christi School to celebrate our Romero Awakens; Eco Day. The event highlighted our “Called to action” responses to Pope Francis’ plea – Laudate Si for us all to take responsibility to care for the planet, nurture nature and make positive changes for future generations.
The fun packed day consisted of presentations from each school (sharing their eco experiences and encouraging others to take part in similar activities), guest speakers included: The Lord Mayor, Coventry Council and Severn Trent; each speaker inspired the children in different ways. After lunch there was a carousel of activities in which the children thoroughly enjoyed, they rotated around making seed bombs, creating eco bricks and then into the 4D room where they watched some David Attenborough clips and then they took part in a quiz.
All of our academy schools are going to make a pledge to work together in a commitment to help to create a better world.
To commemorate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee each school has planted a tree.
This week the Reception children have been learning about Earth Hour, this is an event that takes place every year, where Millions of people across the globe turn off their lights at 8.30PM for one hour in a momentous energy saving movement.
The children have had lessons on endangered species, climate change and energy. They have all made invitations for their families to highlight and promote the event that is happening this Saturday. During our Welly Wednesday session; we held our own Earth Hour event, we turned all of the classroom lights and screens off and went outside for the afternoon. The children thoroughly enjoyed their time outside.
Earth Hour is a really important occasion that highlights; that change needs to happen soon in order to protect our planet. Climate change is happening now and this needs to be addressed. By taking part in this event we are sending a clear message to global leaders to take action and unite people to protect our planet.
We invite you all to turn your lights, televisions, Ipads and computers off this Saturday evening for one hour.
If you would like to find out more about this event you can click the link below:
https://www.earthhour.org/take-part
Welly Wednesday Session: This week during our walk we collected some sticks, each child then made a cross and reflected on Good Friday when Jesus died for us on the cross. All of the reception children marked the occasion showing respect in preparation for the Easter holidays.
The Reception and Nursery children have been very generous this Lent! Together they have made it their mission to be kind to others. Look how proud they were when they gave the Coventry food bank their donations. They are starting to understand that giving to charity is a good thing and that some people are less fortunate than themselves.
Dear All,
Please celebrate Earth Hour this Saturday 27th March 2021. Millions of people across the globe will be turning off their lights at 8.30PM for one hour, by joining in we will show our support, as the mission is to unite people to protect the planet. Earth Hour is a fantastic celebration of changing everyday behaviour.
We are going to turn off our lights as often as we can in order to save energy!
Maybe you could have a candle lit dinner with your family, could you turn the tap off when you are brushing your teeth and could you choose planet friendly food once a week. Our planet is our life support system, recognizing the link between what we do and where the things we use come from is a step to realizing just how important nature is.
We invite you all to join us in making these small changes.
If you would like to find out more about this event you can visit the link below:
https://www.earthhour.org/take-part
Love from
Your Eco-friendly Early Years Team.
The Eco Committee would like the whole school to get involved with this competition. As part of the Together for Our Planet campaign, we’re inviting you to get creative and show global leaders the world you want to live in. All entries must be submitted by 11.59pm on Sunday 28th February 2021. GOOD LUCK!
LINK – https://youtu.be/erjbVsIJlIw
Emilia (Reception class) has shared her competition entry with us. She has drawn what she would like the world to look like. It is a jungle, she has added green trees, pretty flowers, parrots and a tiger. She wants the animals to be able to roam free in the hot sunshine, her world would not have any poachers or destruction of forests. What a marvellous world this would be. WELL DONE EMILIA!
Don’t forget to identify and count the birds that you see in your gardens. Please feel free to print of the grid below to help you record your answers.
Look what the Reception and Nursery children have been up to on their recent Welly Wednesday sessions: They have all thoroughly enjoyed their time outdoors. Their activities have included: noticing the changes that the autumn season brings, they have enjoyed using their senses to see, hear, feel and smell during a variety of experiments and investigations. The autumn colours look wonderful and the children love to rustle about in the fallen leaves. We have been on a hunt to find a skunk that linked to a book we were reading, luckily we didn’t find one but we have found many interesting species living in our grounds. We even went on a pumpkin hunt and managed to find some of them lurking in mysterious places! To mark Remembrance Day, we made a wreath on the playground; we visited the prayer garden to say a few quiet prayers and held a very respectful two-minute silence. We also made some rangoli patterns to show our respect for Diwali. Each week we link our walks to the subjects we are learning indoors, sometimes we even create transient art pieces to display in our classrooms.
Our Earth Hour Activities: We made invitations for our families and friends to join us and millions across the globe in turning out their lights for just one hour on Saturday 28th March, in an attempt to reconnect to nature and draw attention to the issues our planet faces.
We have been learning facts all about endangered species, we made our own wishes upon stars i.e. ”I wish that poachers would stop killing animals” and created a wonderful display.
We showed our LOVE for all the things that are affected by climate change by creating green animals made from love hearts.
We also decorated a tree with lots of items including promises on leaves, these stated ways in which we are going to help to look after our environment in the future.
We have been working hard to gain our Green Tree Awards. Our latest challenge encouraged the children to think outside of the box, use their view finders, take unique photos from different view points and discuss a range of different perspectives.
We would like to say a massive “THANK YOU” to Bella and her fabulous Grandad, for helping us to continue to create safe homes for our wildlife. Over the last few months, the Eco Council have been busy learning all about biodiversity. During our RSPB big school bird watch project, Bella enthusiastically asked her Grandad Kevin, if he could make a birdhouse for our school grounds, as she knew he was very creative and just like us he also loves the great outdoors. To our amazement, he made 6 wonderful birdhouse/nesting boxes. We are delighted with them, they have all been appropriately placed around the grounds in order to attract the birds. We will keep a close eye on them and hopefully see some action as the bird’s curiosity sets in. Thank you, Mr Day, for the materials, your time, energy and generosity, without people like you our wildlife wouldn’t thrive and the children would miss out on some of the exciting learning that comes along with experiences like this!
Recycling
In an attempt to keep as much plastic out of the landfill the recycling team are busy filling up as many 2-litre pop bottles as they can, their aim is to create a small wall for our flower garden.
They have also made some bird feeders and attached little angels!
Birds
We love birds even though the big bird watch is over, we are still enjoying feeding and spotting the different species that live in and around our school grounds.
Tree Maintenance
We have been keeping a close eye on our baby saplings especially as the weather has been so unpredictable. Storm Ciara and storm Dennis took their toll and managed to break and overturn a few but we were quick to replant the ones that we could salvage. Many remained secure and we are really pleased to see them starting to grow.
We are constantly weeding and adding mulch around the plastic covers to stop weeds and grass making their way inside.
We created our own storm, just for fun!
Our gardening team have been busy clearing overgrown ivy and weeds.
Don’t think these two liked what we were doing, we upset their happy home
when we asked them to move on.
By the time we had finished, it looked like a different place. Well done everyone, what a good job!
Eco Newsletter 1
Recycling Appeal
Every year countless pieces of crisp packets end up in landfill sites across the UK. We are working with TerraCycle® to put an end to this enormous loss of resources.
The Crisp Packet Recycling Scheme allows us to recycle our crisp packets and prevent them from ending up in landfill. Not only are we helping the environment, but the waste we recycle will also help to fund our school.
Please send any empty crisp packets you have into us, our aim is to collect 8kg – around 1,600 packets.
The crisp packets will eventually be cleaned and extruded into plastic pellets to make new recycled items.
Thank You in advance for all of your support.
Biodiversity action
Many hands make light work, everyone has a role to play in our Eco after school club.
We are busy making sure that all of our minibeasts have comfy beds for the winter months.
The Big Bird-Watch 2020
The study of ornithology is happening here!
Well, we have started a frenzy here in school, during January the Eco Council have all been engrossed in watching and identifying birds.
The RSPB Big Bird watch is an annual event, this year we are taking part.
We will contribute to the nations bird count by giving feedback to the RSPB about which types of bird are regularly in our school grounds and local area.
The children have been encouraged to get involved with as many of the activities as they possibly can.
Some of the activities have included:
Spotting, completing tally charts, making graphs and pie charts to show their results, making binoculars, writing bird facts, creating their own feathered friends, bird word searches, alphabetically ordering 30 bird names, making bird food and feeding the birds.
It seems that the Eco Council have enjoyed being part of this massive campaign. We will upload all of the data that we have collected for the RSPB during February.
We invite the whole school to take up our challenge and get involved with this project, feeding, identify and watching is fun and very therapeutic. You may like to write a short story / poem about birds, create a piece of art work / make a bird feeder or bird house, all ideas are welcome.
Habitats!
We are encouraging biodiversity in our school garden and helping to increase ecosystem productivity. The children have been busy making insect hotels to increase a variety of insects and wildlife into our garden. We are hoping to see: butterflies, moths, worms, snails, slugs, spiders, centipedes, beetles and bees. Minibeasts can live in most habitats, from dry deserts to lakes. They often live in what are called ‘micro-habitats’, like a stone, a log, a tree or some dead leaves. There are over 25,000 minibeast species in Britain. Minibeasts are of great importance to nature for a number of reasons: they are eaten as a food source by birds and other creatures, in the early stages of a food chain; they help to pollinate plants; they are also often decomposers and eat dead and decaying matter, essentially recycling nutrients back into the ecosystem. They also indirectly help us with farming and growing food as many minibeasts eat other minibeasts that would otherwise destroy our crops. Humans would not survive without minibeasts, so we need to make sure we take care of them and their habitats.
It may be the school holidays …. but that does not stop us from winning awards! We have moved from bronze to silver level.
Recycling appeal
The Eco Council are on a mission to collect as many pairs of unused glasses as they can from their friends and families, we will deliver them to a local optician to be recycled. Not only is it reinforcing our ethos of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle it is also helping us to make a global link. Your generosity will help poor people in Africa through the work of Vision Aid Overseas; they work for a world in which everyone has access to eye care and spectacles. They are committed to the development of primary eye care and utilise professional volunteers to establish vision centres and train eye care workers. By enabling people to have this access, parents are able to continue working and supporting their families and children can receive an education.
We are sure that many of you will have a drawer full of old spectacles that you can no longer use as your prescription may have changed. We would be very grateful if you could donate them to us for this great cause.
The great work we are doing for Vision Aid Overseas today will help raise vital funds to eliminate avoidable blindness by 2021.
We have achieved our Bronze Certificate from the green tree awards!
Good Shepherd’s tree planting – 13/12/2019
Today we planted 130 saplings to create a forest area, part of our Eco-Schools initiative. Helping to fight climate change and create a safe and attractive habitat for wildlife!
Switch off Fortnight
During switch off fortnight, the Eco Committee thought seriously about how and where we use energy, we looked both at home and at school to see what types of energy we were using on a daily basis.
Here is the list we came up with:
Our alarm clocks, radios, televisions, lights, heating, water supply – boilers, electric toothbrushes, kettles, cookers, hobs, microwaves, fridges, freezers, fuel – cars, IPads, computers/laptops and projectors.
We use all of these things every day and they all use an enormous amount of energy. We realised very quickly that pretty much everything we eat or use has needed energy to make it.
So our mission began!
Firstly, our switch off monitors completed a survey to see how many unused items had been left on; they then set to work and encouraged everyone to take responsibility in turning off – not putting items on standby. We Made posters that decorated our school corridors they reminded everyone about our campaign.
Each morning, we visited every classroom to promote this saving not wasting message and we managed to convince all of the teachers to have at least one day of energy saving, where they would not use any electrical items for lessons. The whole school got behind us, each teacher delivered lessons throughout the fortnight to ensure all of the children understood the importance of electricity, its different forms and how we could save energy and stop wasting it as it doesn’t come cheap. Three year groups helped us immensely by going out on trips leaving their classrooms in total darkness with everything turned off and some of the key stage 2 classes looked at the government’s intervention to tackle climate change i.e. how we as a country can achieve an 85% low carbon energy mix by 2032.
Year 4 had some lessons with the lights turned off as there was enough natural light shining through.
Mr Kirby had his lights switched off as he prepared for his next lesson.
During the fortnight, at lunch and break times, the switch off monitors stood next to all of the playground exits and encouraged the last child out to close the door in order to keep our heat in.
They were also responsible for spreading our “DON’T WASTE ENERGY” message throughout the school, they committed to regular checks to see if anyone had left their computers or lights on when they were not needed and in some cases enjoyed giving a lecture to reinforce their message.
We received this certificate for successfully taking part in the campaign.
Vision Aid Overseas!
During Advent it is important that we pay particular attention to other peoples needs, by giving to charities we help people that are less fortunate than ourselves. At this special time of year, we reflect on the birth of Jesus our saviour, he gave so much for us therefore to be like him, we recognise that we should give help to others.
The Eco Council have started to collect as many pairs of unused glasses as they can from their friends and families so they can then deliver them to a local optician to be recycled. Not only is it reinforcing our ethos of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle but we have also found out that we can be helpful to others over in Africa through the work of Vision Aid Overseas.
So far we have collected over 40 pairs of glasses. This great work we have started for Vision Aid Overseas will help raise vital funds to eliminate avoidable blindness by 2021.
Keep sending your old glasses in as this project is ongoing, THANK YOU.
We pray to the Good Shepherd, We ask for the energy and inspiration to stay committed to our Eco Council, Please Lord, help us to tackle our jobs with respect and integrity, enable us to improve this environment and make our piece of the world a better place. Amen.
