ECO Newsletter

Walking Bus

"You may have noticed that we now have 3 walking buses per week:

our
Allen Road
walkers meet in the
Allen Road
lay-by to leave at 8:25 (runs on Mondays and Fridays).
our
Dowlans Road
walkers meet at the corner of
Dowlans Road
and Groveside (runs on Tuesdays).

We'll add to these if there is more demand. Parents are welcome to walk with the buses if they would prefer. If your family normally travels by car, we've picked locations where there is space to park and join in. For more details or to register your child with the walking bus, please talk to Rowena Bruce in the School Office. She can also let you know the days and timings for junior pupils wishing to join the routes to The Dawnay and Eastwick schools. "

Our nomination for the National Schools Awards

When I completed my acceptance of the WWF’s nomination for sustainable school of the year I had to write about what we had been doing and I was amazed and proud at how much we have achieved over the past year. We now have a community of small children who are leading the way towards sustainability. One parent described her daughter as the ‘eco police’, but obviously did not mind about this. Another child complained that we were going somewhere on a coach “ this isn’t very good for the polar-bears” they complained. I am not sure when we hear whether our nomination has been chosen but I don’t really think that matters. What does matter is that we now see ourselves as an ‘eco’ school. We are proud that others have noticed this and we are excited about the possibilities for developing more ‘green’ projects with the children.

Gardening

Now the library is completed we are looking forward to gardening again. We now have a team of parent helpers who will come in to run gardening activities each week. We have asked the cook which vegetables she would like us to grow. If you would like to help with the gardening please let us now. We are hoping to make the gardening project a major part of our activities next year.

Sensory Garden

We are so excited about the sensory garden. A group of parents have worked with our teaching assistant Mrs Barlow to design a super garden to go on the grassy bank.

Library

We are pleased to be working with Remploy who get all their wood from sustainable sources.

Recycling of Foil

We are hoping to recycle foil from next term. There is a foil recycling bin in the Lower Shott car park and Mrs Whiteman, our lunch supervisor, is going to take our foil for recycling and will endeavour to take some of the children down to help with this to raise their awareness.

Saving Water

We encourage the children to drink their water from their bottles. However, we are aware that some does not get drunk. We are going to put buckets by the classroom gates and if you do not want your child’s water please ask them to empty it into the bucket. Mr Gregory will then use this to water the plants.

Water Butts

We hope to put a gutter along the corrugated roof of the outdoor classrooms and channel this into a water butt. We have found a butt with a child proof lid. The children will be able to use this to water the outdoor tubs and the sensory garden.

The Natural World

We continue to link out environmental projects to the polar bears and have also linked this to elephants. We have been ‘given’ an elephant by the Bonner family. The adoption cost for the first year is paid for and we will fund raise to continue this next year. The baby elephant that we have adopted was orphaned through human activity. We will use this to raise awareness with the children of the importance of living in harmony with the natural world and of the necessity to respect all living creatures. We have made (with help from the very talented Mrs Jones) a life size painting of a baby elephant which is on display in the hall.

Action Aid

We continue to send money to Action Aid in order to improve the lives of youngsters in Africa . We have raised the children’s awareness of the importance of water for life and they understand that not all children have a limitless supply of clean water. Because Victoria, our Nigerian girl is now 9 years old we are going to sponsor another younger child as this is appropriate to the age of our children. We have been assured that other sponsors are available for Victoria . We will probably change over sponsorship to India . This is partly because workshops about India are available from Action Aid and this is an exciting opportunity for the children.

Golden Boot

We will be participating in Surreys Golden Boot Challenge again this year. The aim is to encourage as many children as possible to use ‘greener’ transport to school.

This year, with our high profile eco awareness, the challenge seems to be more relevant that ever. We have already collected the baseline data for each class when we researched how children had travelled to school on a particularly day. The winners of the ‘Golden Boot’ will be the class that most improves the way they travel during the week of the challenge.

Green ways to travel include walking, cycling, scootering from home, using public transport or the walking bus, car sharing i.e. more than one family in a car or park and stride. In order to qualify for the last one the car should be parked further away from school than usual. So further away than

Howard Road

. We would suggest either

Dawnay Road

or further down

Crabtree Lane

. We would suggest either or further down .

.We would suggest either or further down .

We are, as always, aware that some children are unable to participate and we explain this clearly to all the children. All we ask is that if you use green transport if you can. Of course, using the walking bus is a great form of eco transport. Please see details of our walking buses below:

our
Allen Road
walkers meet in the
Allen Road
lay-by at 8.20 am to leave promptly at 8:25 am (runs on Mondays and Fridays).
our
Dowlans Road
walkers meet at the corner of
Dowlans Road
and Groveside by 8.25 am (runs on Tuesdays).

I keep fit by

Please send in photos or drawings of ‘ways you keep fit’ when not at school. For example, do you – play football, go swimming, do gardening, go cycling, or walking, play tennis, have a trampoline. We want to know about ways that you exercise.

Eco Committee

The Eco Committee is made up of staff including the Headteacher, lunch supervisors and finance officer also a parent ( Amanda Scott ) and a Governor (John Barnes). We would like a couple of extra parents to join this Committee. We meet about twice a term to review our previous action plan and make new plans for future projects. If you are interested in sustainability please return the attached slip. Thank you.

Chris Carey Clothing Bank

A textile collection bank has been delivered and is located opposite the new library. This is a wonderful opportunity for our community to recycle clothing and make money for the school as we are paid by the weight of the textiles we collect. There are quite strict rules about what can and cannot be recycled in the bank. We are having an introductory assembly on 5^th June for the children and then we will post the instructions on the noticeboard. We would be grateful if you do not use this collection bank until this assembly has taken place.

Coffee Grounds

Thank you for all the ‘donations’ of coffee grounds. We will use them as soon as our plants start to grow. Meanwhile please continue to add your dry coffee grounds to the bucket.

Green Team

We are about to appoint two pupils from each class to our Green Team. They will support Mrs Keedy in promoting eco awareness around the school.

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INTERESTED IN SUSTAINABILITY

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