Many classes have been working alongside the Eco Committee to spring clean the school grounds.
Lots of beautiful spring plants and trees were planted by our eager P6 pupils. The classes also went on the look out for weeds, cut back trees, hoed the soil and laid bark. Working in groups, they helped each other solve problems and learned new skills in gardening and caring for the environment.
The infants outdoor area now has some interesting herbs that can be used for cooking or simply tasting and smelling!
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the current Cross Arthurlie building, the Eco Committee created a memory garden from painted pebbles. Each pebble was painted by past and present pupils and illustrates a happy memory from Cross Arthurlie. The pebbles were unveiled at the schools anniversary celebrations for all to see!
In January 2016, Cross Arthurlie were delighted to find that they had been shortlisted from over 5,000 applications to receive funding from Tesco and Greenspace’s Bags of Help campaign. During February, local Tesco customers voted for the project they would like to see receive the most amount of money. We were thrilled to find out that we had come 2nd in the voting process and would be receiving £10,000 to regenerate our school grounds over the next year.
The Eco Committee has worked hard to gather ideas for our school grounds project from pupils, parents and staff members. The committee will work together to collate the ideas and research options for us that are within our budget. The committee will also be working with parents and local businesses to source materials and to encourage the community to be a part of our school grounds project.
Cross Arthurlie participated in November’s Energy Month programme. As a school, we were becoming more aware of where our energy comes from and how we can use it more wisely. The whole school did well in our Energy Quiz at assembly. Well done!
During October, the Eco Committee organised a campaign to tackle the amount of litter we have in our playground.
We encouraged the whole school to bring a snack that had less packaging to school. It also encouraged us to make healthier choices for snack.
The campaign was a huge success with all classes having large numbers of pupils taking part. At the end of the week, the number of pupils participating was counted. Congratulations to P3/1 who were the winners and received an extra playtime as a reward for all their good efforts!
The Eco Committee are keen to tackle the litter appearing in the playground of Cross Arthurlie. The Eco Committee worked with East Renfrewshire Council’s Environment officer, Michelle Thompson, to organise a whole school litter picking event. The afternoon was a huge success! The playground was clean and tidy but more importantly the event raised awareness of the importance of putting litter in the bin. The committee hope to organise more events in the new year which will hopefully take place in the community surrounding the school.
We recently had new games installed in our playground. The Eco Committee arranged for volunteers to be trained by Mr McGonnigle, Active Schools
Co-ordinator. These helpers showed the other children in the playground how to use the games properly in the first two weeks. Everyone has really enjoyed playing the games.
Our Parent Council provided the funds for our new playground games. We were very grateful and the the Eco Committee sent a thank you letter.
One parent commented recently, “I love to see the children up and running about, playing games that we used to play when we were at school“.
Our Head Teacher Mr McLachlan said, “It is nice to see the children taking part in structured play”.
We are very proud of our P5 pupils Kyle and Kacie who won first place in the CRNS What’s the Next Big Idea competition.
Their idea was to reduce packaging in all supermarkets and to use more eco-friendly materials in their packaging. The children went to the Scottish Parliament to receive their prize of £500 for the school committees to spend. We are also very proud of Jody Mackay, also from P5, for his idea of disposable coffee cups. This idea actually won the High School category.
Congratulations again to all the P5, 6 and 7 children who entered the competition with their great ideas.
Every class across the school has nominated a pupil to represent their class in the Eco Committee. The old committee met with the new committee to explain what it’s like to be in the Eco Committee.
The new members are:
P2/1- Eva Hamilton
P2/2 – Lucy McDowall
P3/1 – Gilen Smith
P3/2 – Emma Hearton
P4/1 – Brook Lenaghan
P4/2 – Molly McEwan
P5/1 – Kaitlin McArthur
P5/2 – Dean Wilson
P6/1 – Rory Craig
P6/2 – Hayley Reynolds
P7/1 – Aimee Graham
P7/2 – Arran Sudding.
We hope to involve the Primary 1’s in Term 2 once they have settled into their new school.
We welcome you all to the committee and we look forward to working with you in the next year!
A group of children from across the school volunteered to go litter picking. We went out around the school with the litter pickers to clean up and we filled a total of bin bags! We went round the fence and we found crisp packets, bottles filled with dirty water, plastic bags, etc. The water drainage ditch at the top of the grassy hill was filled with litter. We managed to tidy up outside the school and even cleaned the bushes and walkway at the bottom of Fern Drive. We were helped by a lady from the council called Michelle Thompson.
