Tag Archives: Eco Schools

Fairtrade Breakfast 2.3.18

Thank you to everyone who braved the weather conditions to come into school early today for our Fairtrade Breakfast. We had 82 people attending which is a super turn-out in our bid to share awareness of Fairtrade food items.  Activities such as these help us to retain our Fair Achiever status for our school. We are very grateful to assistance from Mrs Houston from Dalbeattie’s Hospitality department and the school kitchen and also to Mr Parker, Mrs Dyson, Mrs Cox, Mrs McMinn, and Mrs Robison for all their help. And of course we are so grateful to Kinnairds, Dalbeattie Co-op and Tesco Castle Douglas and to Mary Van Zwanenberg from the Kirkcudbright Traidcraft Group for supporting our event with donations of Fairtrade food items. Here are just a few of the pictures from the event. Any profits raised is going towards purchasing Fairtrade footballs to help to continue to spread awareness.

  

  

  

  

 

Fairtrade Achiever Award Presentation with Eco Group and DHS Pupils

Today, we were delighted to have two representatives from Dalbeattie High School, along with our own Eco Group at a special presentation given by Mrs Dyson, our Primary 5 teacher. Mrs Dyson has been very busy, over the last few years, planning a range of Fairtrade activities with her Primary 5 class and eco group as part of our ‘Fairtrade Journey.’ Mrs Dyson first outlined the activities, comprising mainly of an audit of staff and pupils about Fairtrade products,  which were undertaken to achieve the ‘Fair Aware’ award. She then explained the activities which followed before we were awarded the ‘Fair Active School’ award in 2015: presentation to local community and Fairtrade snacks at an afternoon tea amongst many others.  Then in 2017, the school was awarded the ‘Fair Achiever’ award following still more activities which included a Fairtrade Breakfast and whole school assembly with a  Fairtrade representative. Since then , the Primary 5 class has also organised a Fairtrade games afternoon and a Fairtrade morning break time staggered over two days and met with a company who supply Fairtrade school sweatshirts so that these can be offered also to parents to buy complete with school logo. This week finds us in DGlife as we prepare for our next Fairtrade Breakfast next week on Thursday 1st March. Thank you to all who have already shown support for this event by buying tickets and to the local businesses (Kinnairds, Co-op and Tesco) who are supporting us with donations of Fairtrade food items.

  

Eco Schools

On Thursday 31st August, the Eco Group went on a trip to Tongland Power Station and The Dee Hatchery. At Tongland, the group was learning about renewable energy using hydro power. We found out about the dam system on ‘The Dee’ and visited the turbine hall to find out more about how electricity is generated. We got to walk along the actual dam at Tongland and saw the gate being opened to see the force of the water rushing through. We also saw the fish ladder where the salmon move up river when they return from the Atlantic, back to their spawning ground.  Later in the day, the group moved onto the Dee Hatchery at Shirmers Burn where we watched the Galloway Fisheries Rangers undertake some electro fishing. The fish were put into buckets for us to look at more closely and handle. Some of the group members were even brave enough to handle the baby North American Signal Cray Fish. The salmon and trout were returned to the burn afterwards but not the cray fish as they are not native to the Dee River system! The group is very grateful to Tim and especially to Rowan who has worked so closely with the group over recent years.