We are delighted to announce that Abercromby has been awarded an Eco Schools Green Flag, and that we passed with merit. Fran, our teacher in Willow Tree, has led on this, building on foundations laid by many others who have worked in our school over the years.
The Eco Schools award recognises our commitment to embed eco friendly practices at the centre of all we do, involving and teaching our children about the importance of looking after our world.
Our Eco code is part of our Abercromby Values and we have adapted our logo to showcase our Eco Values. Have a look at our logo and watch this video of the children telling us about our Eco Code at Abercromby.
Here is the feedback in full
We are very pleased to tell you that you and your Eco-Committee at Abercromby Nursery School have been awarded an Eco-Schools Green Flag.
We reviewed your application and noted the following:
We love your inclusive approach to appointing the Eco-Committee members by ensuring all your children take part as you want all your children to feel a sense of ownership towards their nursery school, and be involved in learning more about how to make small changes to help protect our planet. We love how you plan and differentiate different activities so that everyone is included. Your approach to the Eco-Committee and encouraging students to discuss eco issues demonstrates a proactive and assured approach to the programme. It is impressive to see! We also like how your Eco-Committee communicates their activities and ideas school-wide by producing minutes from the meetings which are posted on the Eco-Board and also emailed to parents and governors. We like how you post photos on our online learning journals and post to Twitter and to your school website and also communicate with external stakeholders, including parents, via your school newsletters. It is great that you ensure a range of actions are completed to help make your nursery as eco-friendly as possible. This shows how valued and embedded the ideas underpinning the Eco-Schools programme are in your school! It was really great to read how your Environmental Review provided the basis for the projects in your Action Plan and allowed you to celebrate the amazing work previously done by a wide range of stakeholders. This approach encourages the children to feel a sense of pride and to acknowledge the huge amount of work that has gone on previously to create such a lovely environment at your school and demonstrates a reflective and considered approach to your Eco-Schools work – this is a great skill that many adults can learn from! You’ve clearly taken great efforts to connect your energy, marine and waste projects happening across the school and embedding work into curriculum and everyday school life in a really impactful way. This is really inspiring and clever.
Your Action Plans are great! The actions that you planned out were really SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound). This is important as it helps to achieve progress and empower your Eco-Committee. It was also great to see accountability and monitoring and evaluation clearly marked in your Action Plans. Great work! We also loved the fun and engaging video of the children presenting your Eco-Code and the professional looking graphic design for the poster! Your curriculum links were really clear and creative. Encouraging all children to learn about biodiversity through teaching the children learning to identify the animals in your garden sounds great! It is wonderful to hear that you help the children understand about how their environment can help us and how we can help protect our environment, and that you have been helping them to develop an appreciation, respect and love of your local area. By taking this approach you are giving the children the understanding of the environment that they live in, and that their actions have an impact that will benefit the environment. You then followed this up with practical actions to help maintain the living spaces for animals and bugs at your nursery to encourage more of their species to join and grow. Creating learning opportunities around these fun activities which is wonderful to hear about! This kind of creative pedagogical work helps these young children to create lovely memories and hopefully approach this important topic in a fresh and relevant way, and is a great way to encourage them to take pride and ownership of their local environment. You’ve clearly tried to engage both internally and externally.
Your efforts with World Ocean Day and with parents is really inspiring. It is great to hear your eco-friendly Christmas tree won a prize at the local St Brides Christmas tree competition and that you worked with the Wildflower Project during the Platinum Jubilee, giving out red, white and blue wildflower seeds in compostable bags! Such work with internal and external stakeholders at the school is an example of the collaborative approach we will all need to adopt to help the environment – your application made us feel really positive for the future! Your achievements this year have been great to hear about. It is wonderful to see that your children are keen to protect the environment, and this is in large part due to the actions and attitudes of your staff in regards to setting an example in raising the importance of taking care of our planet. You did lots of trips and walks to local landmarks, planting in your lovely garden, using your composting bins, and noting which animals are present. It is great to hear you made posters using natural materials around the garden to inform the whole school about your findings. It is inspiring to hear how you used your own amazing school garden to collect natural objects so that you could decorate your school! Congratulations to everyone for the great work you have managed to do. You should all be very proud of your amazing work and the great application you have submitted. You’ve really earned your Green Flag with Merit Award accreditation!