The past few months have been very busy for the Eco Committee. Our first Car Free/Share day took place on September 12 and was a success, with a greater number of staff sharing transport and cycling to school than on the previous day in April. Our Eco Team volunteers were in school bright and early at 7.30am to stop cars as they entered the staff car park to check whether staff were sharing cars or not. Other pupils waited at school entrances to reward staff who walked, cycled or arrived by public transport with tickets which entitled them to coffee and cake!

Members of the Eco Team completed an Environmental Review and carried out a whole-school survey to get an idea of pupils’ overall priorities for Eco-Schools actions. They used their findings from these to develop the following action plan:

1. Hold a whole-school Eco Day on global sustainability, focusing on the school’s link with Kiurani Secondary School, Kenya.
2. Launch a new litter campaign, involving the whole school through a poster competition and participation in the National Spring Clean.
3. Produce food in the school’s allotment and greenhouse for use in Home Economics and perhaps for sale.

Our Action Plan is now displayed on the Eco-Schools notice board in the playground.

This year our S1 Eco Team members are working towards an all-new Dynamic Youth Award. They will be working through a booklet which documents their Eco-Schools actions and will be rewarded with a prize at the end of the year.

Our biodiversity garden is coming along well, with come Team members going as often as they can to weed the flowerbeds and pick up the litter which is blown in there. The S2 John Muir Award enrichment class has also picked up a huge amount of litter and planted bulbs both in the garden and the school grounds. We’re looking forward to seeing these flowering next year.

The biodiversity garden isn’t the only place where our green-fingered Team members have been hard at work – we also have a thriving herb garden in the greenhouse!

We hope to provide Home Economics with herb gardens when our plants are large enough.

Six of our Team members also visited Standard Life in Baileyfield Estate to share good practice on recycling, energy efficiency and caring for grounds. The pupils really enjoyed getting a glimpse of the working world and were impressed with the actions of the Green team there. In return, the pupils were able to give the Green Team one or two ideas.

Our next event will be the whole-school Eco Day on December 16. Watch this space for more news!