Eco Schools

This page highlights the work of Elderbank Primary as an Eco School and the fantastic work of the Eco Committe, made up of pupil members. Regular updates will appear here.

October 2020

P4D have created this fantastic Hedgehog Hotel and are hoping to have some prickly guests to stay over the winter.

The Story So Far…

Our Eco committee was formed with representatives from each stage of the school including Supported Learning. The younger members P1-3 were elected by their teacher. P4-7 were elected by their peers after completing different tasks/talks.

In line with our Action Plan the committee worked with our school Janitors to take litter audits regularly and to form a Litter Picking Committee.

We discovered there was a still a litter problem within the school. The eco committee prepared an assembly and also provided more bins and recycling areas to tackle this problem. We created posters to show around the school. We also watched Joe Smith’s lecture on 12 shakes and 1 paper towel. We promoted this around the school to limit the amount of paper towels we use in one day. We went from using 3 boxes per week down to 1 box.

The Eco Committee also received a visit from AC Whyte to look at saving energy in our community. This also supported us when we took part in the Eco Energy challenge in North Ayrshire.

Classes were also visited by Water Aid to explore the importance of saving water. All of the classes enjoyed the presentations and taking part in different activities.

Following our environmental review and having completed some of the topics, we were only left with a couple of topics. We felt
we had to tackle Global Citizenship (in line with our RRS committee) and Biodiversity. Global Citizenship is supported through the
work of our RRS committee as well, who worked closely with a school in India. As a school, we continue to work on the Rights of
the Child throughout all stages. We worked on helping our wildlife that are within and around the school grounds. We created a bug hotel and also undertake annual bee counts to support this. We link
this in with the littering topic as well to ensure the pupils understand the importance of having a clean environment for the local
wildlife. The whole school involvement has recently been clarified in the School’s Sustainable Education Policy which links directly to the
curriculum and requires each class to undertake at least one activity a term which supports our Action Plan. A new Learning for Sustainability policy has been put into place by the Learning for Sustainability working party in order to show consistency across the
school for areas such as Eco, RRS and Outdoor Learning.We measured our use of paper towels and plastic cups before and after we implemented new policies to tackle them. With recycling we record the amount of each item recycled. With glasses, CDs and
mobile phones we record numbers which are displayed. With paper, plastic, stamps and batteries we weigh and record progress on charts. Recycling clothes has rewarded the school with funds in excess of two hundred pounds.

Litter is monitored closely with our termly litter audit. Progress is fed back by the Eco Committee to the whole school on our notice board and at whole school assemblies.
We monitored the amount of waste that was produced after lunch time weekly compared to when we introduced the
packaging free lunch week.

Our new Learning for Sustainability policy ensures whole school involvement and that all classes have a part to play. P1 7 are all responsible for the annual Environmental Review. All classes are required to undertake different topic areas and activities linked to
our Action Plan at least once a term and each stage is responsible for recycling a specific item. In addition the Eco Committee promote the Action Plan through various events, competitions and fundraisers. Success is shared at whole school assemblies and through displays where classes can feedback achievements. Our Eco Code was developed with input from all classes.

Our Green Finger Gang who help maintain all the indoor plants recently won a competition to go and display their ‘Pocket Garden’ at the Garden Festival at Ingliston. We shared their success during assemblies. We also shared our work at the North Ayrshire Schools
Energy Challenge at the Greenwood Conference Centre. The certificate we received is displayed within the school foyer and was mentioned in the Eco Schools section of the school’s termly newsletter.

Recycled Items – December 2017

On Wednesday 13^th December 2017. Three P7 pupils handed 61 pairs of glasses into Specsavers to be recycled.

They also visited Oxfam and handed in 13 DVDs and 17CDs.

A box of used batteries was also deposited at the recycling centre

Items from the Recycling Point: