Earlier this year, Primary 5 were the winners in our Eco Competition to win the highest  house points, for carrying out Eco Actions throughout the year. There was stiff competition, especially from the infant department who kept their playground free of litter through their litter picking efforts and the points totals were close.

As a result, Primary 5 were taken to Prestwick Beach for the day. In addition to having fun splashing in the waves, they undertook a beach litter survey. At first glance, there didn’t appear to be very much litter on the beach, but by the end of the day, after weighing the bags they filled, they found they had removed 8 Kg of litter from the sand. This litter would have proved deadly to marine creatures if swept out to sea, or to  birds, who could mistake it for food and the children were proud that they could have saved these animals.  Here are some of the photos of their day at the beach.

We are in the middle of Switch Off Fortnight 2022. This is an annual energy saving  campaign from EDF’s The Pod, which  is an opportunity for  schools and young people to make small changes in their lives that save energy and help to protect the planet. This year 1656 schools across Britain are taking part.

Switch Off Fortnight began this month in our school, with a launch assembly delivered by our Sustainability Committee. The aim was to make our pupils understand why climate change is happening, its consequences for humanity and nature and to help them see how they can play their part at school and home to lower their carbon footprints. As Climate Action is one of our three whole school Eco topics we are working on to earn our next green flag, we thought taking part would be a great thing to do.  You can see our launch assembly in the photos below.

During these two weeks, the Sustainability Committee will be collecting gas and electricity readings with the help of Mr Moss, our Eco friendly janitor at the beginning and end of each week to calculate how much of these resources our school has used. We hope to see a drop in our energy use across these two weeks, compared to our usual meter readings. Pupils and staff are being encouraged to switch off lights and other electrical items around the school, whenever their use is not necessary, in line with our school energy policy.