How did you undertake your environmental review?

Our most recent review was carried out in October 2008. The Eco committee members were split into three groups. Each group worked with an adult member of the committee and focused on different parts of the review. This involved the pupils interviewing various members of staff such as office staff, the janitor, kitchen staff and the active schools co-ordinator.

How did you decide on the targets for your action plan?

.P7 Raised money for Friends of The Earth as part of read for the future campaign which was to encourage children to read more instead of watching tv so therefore save energy too!

PSA Mrs Burnett set up a new garden lunchtime club

P6 pupils worked with local school Springhill Primary designing Eco vehicles - re-using their old junk whilst developing their design and enterprise skills. They also visted Arthurlie nursery to make Eco vehicles with the nursery children .

MSP Jackson Carlaw visited the school to find out what an Eco school is- the committee presented a PowerPoint to him demonstrating all the different Eco initiatives in the school. He promised to deliver in the Scottish parliament a Parliamentary Motion congratulating us if we receive our 4h green flag!

The whole school led by older children took part in a Power Down campaign to reduce energy used in the school. With the help of the janitor they monitored fuel consumption and saw a reduction in fuel used – therefore campaign was very successful.

Pupils have been attended local community meetings about the use of outside space in Barrhead. They spoke confidently about their ideas for the best use of the outdoor space in Barrhead. The work has now started in the burn area near the school.

Play zone buddies (Trained by PSA Mrs Muirhead) help keep the infants fit and healthy at break and lunchtime by introducing them to new playground games.

A new activity wooden activity trail has been built for the school.

New campaign to reduce amount of paper towels used in the school.

A pupil (current P7) won "Making Barrhead Better" competition through her suggestion to put up more signs around the town and suggesting the local parks are maintained to a higher standard.

Whole school started their journey towards achieving UNICEF Rights Respecting Schools award.

P1,1/2 and P6/7 bred butterflies and released them into garden.



3^rd –7^th March 08 – School Africa week. Miss Flaherty( P6 teacher) went to Malawi as part of Link Development programme giving up her summer in ’08. Africa week was a chance for P6 to tell whole school all about what Miss Flaherty was going o be doing in Malawi. Since Miss Flaherty’s return we have had African awareness days, African tasting etc. We now have a link school in Malawi and have sent replies to their letters recently. We also included some Eco posters on how we help to save the planet. We look forward to reading their responses and seeing what their Eco ideas are like. We have had a parents African awareness night since her return organised a led by pupils.

 

 

 

 

 

Erica Kemmet came to speak to whole school about recycling bottles

A new aluminium-recycling bin has been installed in the school.

Primary 7’s taught whole school the new Eco Code.

Participated in Road Safety week.

Whole school took part in Road Safety calendar competition – and we have had two winners!

Whole school took part in walk to school month.

All Primary 7 children encouraged to take part in cycling proficiency and programme is being expanded to Primary 6 in ‘09

Eco award for tidiest classroom – judged by cleaners.

Participated in Big School Bird watch every year.

Continue to host regular Fair-trade events for parents and local community.

New Garden Monitors have been appointed.

Taking part in Potato councils "Grow Your Own Potatoes " initiative after success in ’08.

Younger children continue to have visits from local health visitors to develop healthy living skills. All activities are very interactive and fun eg –Oral health session, which involved dinosaur and bouncy castle, to spread oral hygiene message.

Visit from London based drama group to spread message of Road Safety and to encourage less use of cars.

Whole school involved in East Renfrewshire Healthy Eating Campaign- children from our school won bikes, free healthy snacks vouchers and vouchers for free lunches.



 

 

 

 

 

 

Whole school recycled old school bags. Pupil’s old bags were sent to Africa for use by African children.

New fruit monitors from P7 have been appointed- deliver fruit Tuesday-Thursday to whole school.

New bin, light and tap monitor have been appointed in each class and new badges issued.

New mural designed by P7 pupil has been painted on back of bookshelves in our Eco Zone. Previously it was covered with paper that kept getting ripped. P7s suggested painting it and did all the painting themselves – Rebecca’s design looks fantastic!

The garden monitors ordered new garden equipment with "Lets Grow" vouchers from Morrisons.

P7 pupils visited a nursery in Bridge of Allan to advise them on how to start their journey towards becoming an Eco nursery. Pupils did a puppet show spreading Eco message, made birdcakes with children and then created their new Eco code for them." If You’re Eco and You Know it." We are delighted that since the visit the nursery have got their Bronze and Silver award and are now in the process of applying for their 1^st green flag. We are going to remain Eco buddies so we can encourage one another with our Eco activities and even maybe team up again to do some more Eco activities.

P7s visited local Arthurlie nursery and did Power Points for them to spread REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE message. They also passed on useful websites for nursery staff to use with children.

P7 created a new Eco code to the tune of a very popular High School Musical song as part of their topic Our Environment. They then piloted it at an assembly. Feedback from classes via Eco reps was very good and it is now our schools new Eco Code.

Continue to work with East Renfrewshire Council gardeners in the summer term to create hanging baskets for Barrhead Main Street.

We also continue to

Recycle paper, cardboard and plastic on a fortnightly basis and cans when required.

Take part in the "Recycool" campaign

Appoint new litter pickers each term.

Ensure new bin monitors are trained by the janitor to organise recycling within school.

Have two new Road Safety officers – they are appointed at start of the year( Currently- Caitlin Kelly & Alicia Sproul P6).

Maintain garden areas through the use of Garden Monitors

 

Eco committee meetings, where we look at how things are going, if we are on target and how we can sustain or improve upon an activity.

Keeping the Senior Management Team up to date with progress and development.

Speaking to classes, looking for feedback and encouraging children to use the Eco suggestion box.

Whole school assemblies – important to keep whole school up to date with developments.

Participation in surveys.

Photographs.

Action Plan and photos posted on St. Mark’s web site.

Eco Corridor timeline – to ensure whole school and visitors can remember and reflect on all the Eco work going on a monthly basis

Working with janitor to monitor and evaluate fuel consumption and displaying data in Eco zone.

P7 members display data collected in graph form to ensure it is easy for younger children to understand.

 

6) Please give an indication of the numbers of pupils involved in curriculum work related to your Eco Schools developments.

Our school Eco Project involves every child in the school. We link Eco with our programmes of work to ensure children develop an awareness of the environment and the importance of looking after it, as well as looking after and caring for themselves. We have a named teacher who is responsible for the environmental curriculum and she ensures there is balance at each stage.

All children are actively encouraged to participate in Eco activities throughout the school year. Everyone takes part in Eco Action days. Eco also plays an important role in our Enterprise Programme.

Examples of some of the issues covered within our curriculum, relating to Eco are

 

Environmental / Health

Healthy Lifestyles

Healthy Eating

Water

Citizenship

Water Safety



Aerobics

Rubbish Matters – Recycle, Reduce, Reuse

Clean Water, Dirty Water

How clean is the Air?

Transport

Rainforests

A Safe Environment

Our Environment

Environmental Issues

Plant Study

Energy

Sources of Energy

Electricity

Materials

Changes in Materials

Earth’s Resources

On Planet Earth

Structure of Earth

Design

Posters

Eco Code

Badges

Language / ICT

Letters / Reports

Minutes of meetings

Newspaper Reports

Eco Code

Power point presentations

Talking/ Listening

Speaking out at assemblies

Meetings

Reporting to class

Talking to visitors to school

Maths

Graphs

Data Handling

Surveys

7) How was the whole school informed of, and involved in, all aspects of the Eco Schools Project?

The school is encouraged to use the Eco suggestion box.

There is an Eco section on our school website which has the action plan and information on Eco events.

There is at least one representative from each class on the Eco committee.

The whole school participates in activities on the action plan e.g. recycling paper, cardboard and plastic, keeping the school an litter free zone, recycling ink cartridges and mobile phones, looking after school grounds etc.

Each class has monitors for various jobs e.g. Light, Bin, Tap, Computer, Fish.

The whole school participates in special Eco events such as – The Eco Action Day, Fairtrade events, African awareness days

The Eco Code is displayed in every classroom

All Eco news is posted in "The Eco Zone" corridor and all recent Eco work and events are displayed on Eco Timeline.

School newsletters entries written by children

Eco reps speak regularly at whole school assemblies to ensure everyone is up to date with latest Eco news

 

8) Please describe your school’s Day of Action?

Our Day of Action actually turned into a few days of Eco fun and had a festive theme. Our focus this year was on re using and recycling. We invited visitors in from Starling Learning (RSPB) they took over the large top open area of the school and made Christmas crafts from things from our natural environment and using junk we had collected with the upper school. They also made bird cakes and bird feeders from junk for our garden and playground area. The older pupils then held workshops for the younger children passing on their newly acquired recycling and re using skills so the whole school made fantastic Christmas decorations and crafts. It was great and quite different from our previous actions days.

For the past 2 years as well as our Action Days we have also have 2 Fairtrade events each year which the whole school are very involved in and the Eco committee help to run and organise. Our next event is a Fairtrade café and stall/Africa Awareness afternoon for parents and the local community on 6^th March.

 

9) Please describe contacts you have made with the wider community regarding your Eco Schools activities.

Featured in local papers promoting Eco events. E.g. Fairtrade events, Eco Action Day etc.

We have now made a link with school in Malawi and we have just sent letters and posters all about life in Barrhead. We were asked to send posters displaying how we help the environment. We are looking forward to their responses and seeing what the pressing environmental issues are for them



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Primary 7 have visited local Arthurlie nursery to promote Eco schools and they did fantastic PowerPoint presentations for the nursery to encourage them with Eco activities and also supplied websites for nursery children to use.

We were asked to visit and advise a nursery in Bridge of Allan on how to start the Eco schools project. Miss Duffy and 6 pupils visited the nursery and spoke to the children and staff about how to start their Eco programme. We even helped them write their Eco code. The nursery have now been awarded their silver and Bronze awards are are currently applying for 1^st Green flag.

The "Wee G" is invited into school to promote social behaviour and message of how to keep children and local environment a healthy place

Primary 7 visit Safety in the Park – healthy living/vandalism

Eco committee work well with Active schools co-ordinator Kirsten Torrance to get advice on Health and fitness related issues.

Pupils take part in planting hanging baskets for Barrhead Main St. with council gardeners in Rouken Glen Park.

School newsletters help keep parents up to date and in addition to these the Eco Committee often send letters home informing parents of new developments.

Parents are very much encouraged to get involved in all Eco activities whenever possible.

The Eco Committee have set up a business agreement with Local Fair-trade shop and have set up stalls from this shop for all our Fair-trade events. Some pupils visited the shop to select stalls.



 

 

 

 

 

The local community - parents, grandparents, local councillors and members of the church community all play an important role in supporting Eco events.

Close links have been established with School board and PTA.

Eco Committee presented Eco action Plan to MSP who visited to see an Eco school in action. He says he will mention us in Scottish parliament if we are successful in our quest to get 4^th Green Flag.

Work with local volunteers – shoe box appeal

East Renfrewshire council – Eat Healthy campaign

"Starling Learning"(RSPB) visitors – Christmas crafts

Participate in East Renfrewshire initiatives -Road safety competition.

Drama group "BoxFresh" visited to promote walking to school and o encourage children to reflect on the over use of cars in today’s society.

Younger pupils get regular visits from health promoting agencies.( Our next visit is end of February)

As part of the Burns homecoming celebration in collaboration with The National Trust for Scotland Pupils in P4 are going to be designing and creating a Burns inspired wheelbarrow garden which will be displayed in local public gardens for people to admire and there will be a competition for winning design.

Whole school is working with local community wardens and parent council to improve grounds immediately outside the school. The Eco committee are launching a campaign/poster competition to try to reduce dog mess at school gates. Winning poster design is to be displayed on school railings.

Our immediate plan is to complete our current action plan.

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We plan to make full use of the Eco Schools website to remain up to date with projects and issues that might benefit the school community and the world as a whole. We will also maintain our flexible attitude to ensure we take advantage of all new Eco opportunities that come our way and follow up areas of pupil interest that may surface in the course of next year. Almost every few week exciting new Eco projects evolve in the school, whether they be Topic generated or from an outside agency or even just come about due to pupils own interest/initiative. Due to the enthusiasm and support of the children, staff and parents in St Mark’s we are lucky to be able to follow up these projects and therefore have a real vibrant and ever inspiring approach to Eco throughout the school.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coming in to the Spring term we are hoping to introduce some new plants and vegetables to our garden area. We are currently in the process of applying to "Carts Greenspace" for advice on the best plants for our garden and any possible help with further developing the garden area.

We hope to continue to develop an awareness of Global diversity. We have a now have the link with Eliya Chimtengo School in Malawi and it will be fascinating learning about environmental issues from the school.

The Eco committee in conjunction with Local Community wardens are just starting to plan their tidy up of dog mess immediately outside school gates and will be launching their poster competition very soon.

As we are very confident that we are doing a good job maintaining all our current Eco initiatives within our school we are to looking in to expanding our work further in to the local community. We plan to do this by teaming up with "Go Greener" a local environmental community group to join in more local community projects. We are in discussions with "Go Greener" to see how we can get involved in some of the following upcoming projects – Fruit tree planting, Barrhead Go Greener project, Community re-cycling project and Make a Difference day (in Neilston)Our Local Councillor, Councillor Phillips is coming in to talk to the Eco committee about how the whole school can get involved in these projects.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St. Mark’s Eco Application

 

 

 

 

4^th Green Flag