Eco-Schools Day
Held at The Crystal, Royal Victoria Dock, E16
Tuesday 26th November
9.30am – 3.00pm
Held at The Crystal, Royal Victoria Dock, E16
Tuesday 26th November
9.30am – 3.00pm
Primary schools from across Newham joined together for a day to find out more about the Eco-Schools programme.
Each school brought along 3 or 4 members of their student Eco Group.
The day started with an introduction to the Eco-School process. Hannah Chisholm, Education Officer at Recycle for your Community, explained the simple stages to accreditation and the nine topics - see her useful powerpoint here
After Hannah, Theresa Aananson and Paul Durrant , from St Luke's Primary School, talked us through their journey to becoming the first green flag school in Newham. They have now had THREE green flags! Becoming green is an ongoing task - Theresa talked about the school 19th Century log books mentioning pupils gardening! Since moving sites the school has worked hard to develop their outside area. It's not just outside though - Paul talked about bringing Ecology into the curriculum, recycling, the fight to get cleaners to use environmentally friendlier products....every aspect of school life has been affected by their eco-journey. During the day all the schools were able to visit St Luke's (walking of course!) and see the fruits of their labour.
The school, like many in Newham, has limited green space and is surrounded by roads, tall buildings and grey but once in the school grounds you forget everything but the biodiversity of life surrounding you. St Luke's pupils took all their guests on a tour of the school and talked about all they do to be green. What was most impressive is these were not the Eco Group! Everyone in St Luke's knows about and is proud of their green achievements. It's a whole school success story.
Whilst half the group were at St Luke's the other half spent the morning exploring The Crystal - the world’s leading interactive sustainability exhibition. So many buttons to press, scenarios to plan and worlds to create... we just need to go again!
Afterward exploring The Crystal the group worked with Hannah on the next steps for their school towards Getting to Green Flag. Hannah helped each school to think about what they have achieved and where they might go using an Eco Schools Action Plan.
Everyone came back to The Crystal to share lunch and network before swapping around - half to the exhibition and half to St Luke's.
To finish we had a Question and Answer Session with some of our Newham Sustainable Schools EcoNetwork.
Below are the contact details of the Eco Network participants. Please do contact them with any queries about their speciality.
Felix Onyeji LBN Energy Unit - for all your energy questions - [email protected]
You will hear more from Felix and his team in coming weeks as we role out the training for using your school energy usage web portal.
Sally Shadrack from NPW - works with schools on their Newham Catering & Cleaning Service provision - [email protected]
Sally is particularly keen to talk to schools about the massive impact of changing dishwashers.
Dave Tillman from Spring - works with over 40 schools across Newham and East London. Dave and his team are responsible for developing much of the EcoGarden that you saw at St Luke's. Dave is a mine of information about what will and won't work in practice! [email protected]
Not forgetting Paul Durrant, and all from St Luke's - Paul, Theresa and the EcoGroup would be happy to answer any questions about their eco-journey. [email protected]
And finally a big thank you to Hannah Chisholm
Hannah is new to Newham and is clearly a fantastic asset and we are very grateful for her input on Tuesday. Hannah works at Recycle for your Community and is based at Jenkins Lane. [email protected]
What a day! What eco-journeys to plan!
Each school brought along 3 or 4 members of their student Eco Group.
The day started with an introduction to the Eco-School process. Hannah Chisholm, Education Officer at Recycle for your Community, explained the simple stages to accreditation and the nine topics - see her useful powerpoint here
After Hannah, Theresa Aananson and Paul Durrant , from St Luke's Primary School, talked us through their journey to becoming the first green flag school in Newham. They have now had THREE green flags! Becoming green is an ongoing task - Theresa talked about the school 19th Century log books mentioning pupils gardening! Since moving sites the school has worked hard to develop their outside area. It's not just outside though - Paul talked about bringing Ecology into the curriculum, recycling, the fight to get cleaners to use environmentally friendlier products....every aspect of school life has been affected by their eco-journey. During the day all the schools were able to visit St Luke's (walking of course!) and see the fruits of their labour.
The school, like many in Newham, has limited green space and is surrounded by roads, tall buildings and grey but once in the school grounds you forget everything but the biodiversity of life surrounding you. St Luke's pupils took all their guests on a tour of the school and talked about all they do to be green. What was most impressive is these were not the Eco Group! Everyone in St Luke's knows about and is proud of their green achievements. It's a whole school success story.
Whilst half the group were at St Luke's the other half spent the morning exploring The Crystal - the world’s leading interactive sustainability exhibition. So many buttons to press, scenarios to plan and worlds to create... we just need to go again!
Afterward exploring The Crystal the group worked with Hannah on the next steps for their school towards Getting to Green Flag. Hannah helped each school to think about what they have achieved and where they might go using an Eco Schools Action Plan.
Everyone came back to The Crystal to share lunch and network before swapping around - half to the exhibition and half to St Luke's.
To finish we had a Question and Answer Session with some of our Newham Sustainable Schools EcoNetwork.
Below are the contact details of the Eco Network participants. Please do contact them with any queries about their speciality.
Felix Onyeji LBN Energy Unit - for all your energy questions - [email protected]
You will hear more from Felix and his team in coming weeks as we role out the training for using your school energy usage web portal.
Sally Shadrack from NPW - works with schools on their Newham Catering & Cleaning Service provision - [email protected]
Sally is particularly keen to talk to schools about the massive impact of changing dishwashers.
Dave Tillman from Spring - works with over 40 schools across Newham and East London. Dave and his team are responsible for developing much of the EcoGarden that you saw at St Luke's. Dave is a mine of information about what will and won't work in practice! [email protected]
Not forgetting Paul Durrant, and all from St Luke's - Paul, Theresa and the EcoGroup would be happy to answer any questions about their eco-journey. [email protected]
And finally a big thank you to Hannah Chisholm
Hannah is new to Newham and is clearly a fantastic asset and we are very grateful for her input on Tuesday. Hannah works at Recycle for your Community and is based at Jenkins Lane. [email protected]
What a day! What eco-journeys to plan!
