2024-2023 Eco Council
Summer Uniform Swap July 2024 – A Huge Success!
Our Summer Uniform Swap was a fantastic success! As part of our Reduce and Recycle initiative, the Summer Fair provided the perfect opportunity for parents to take home unwanted uniforms from our lost property section.
Each year, our Year 6 students donate their nearly new uniforms before moving on to high school, giving other families the chance to reuse them. These uniforms were given away for free, helping to reduce waste, and most of the unwanted items found a new home.
A huge thank you to the School Council for leading this wonderful initiative and to Mrs. Bown for managing the stall with the School Council children. Not only did this project help reduce waste, but it also allowed parents to save money while ensuring that good-quality uniforms were reused.
It was lovely to see these uniforms go to new homes, and we look forward to continuing this initiative in the future!
Recycling Lost Property Uniforms & Organising a Uniform Swap Shop at Tudor Primary
By Miss Besely and Eco Council
1. Collecting Lost Property Uniforms
- Regularly checked the lost property section for unclaimed uniforms.
- Set a deadline for parents to collect any missing items before they are considered for recycling.
- Wash and sort uniforms to ensure they are in good condition for reuse.
2. Organising a Uniform Donation Drive
- Encourage families, especially Year 6 students, to donate nearly new uniforms before they leave for high school.
- Promote the donation drive through newsletters, emails, and school assemblies.
- Set up a designated collection point where parents and students can drop off their uniforms.
3. Preparing for the Uniform Swap Shop
- Sort uniforms by size and type (e.g., shirts, trousers, skirts, jumpers).
- Remove any items that are too worn out to be reused.
- Organise a stall at a school event summer fair, to distribute the uniforms.
4. Running the Uniform Swap Shop
- Set up a welcoming space with clear signage for parents to browse the available uniforms.
- Offer uniforms for free or encourage donations to support school initiatives.
- Involve student volunteers (e.g., School Council members) to help run the stall.
- We Promoted the environmental benefits of reusing uniforms to encourage participation.
5. Promoting the Success of the Initiative
- Share the impact of the event in the school newsletter.
- Highlight how many uniforms were saved from waste and how it helped families.
- Thank all contributors, including students, and parents, for their support.
By following these steps, we successfully reduced waste, helped families save money, and promoted sustainability within our school community. This initiative not only benefited parents but also taught students the importance of recycling and reusing resources.
Environmental Review May 2024
On 15th May the school councillors conducted an environmental review.
An environmental review is a way of assessing our school's environmental performance and establishing priorities for action. It is a three-stage process:
- establishing environmental issues.
- setting targets for improvement.
- implementing the action plan.
Once we have established and verified the environmental baseline, we developed a series of broad objectives and more specific targets to improve the environmental performance of our school.
Our choice of objectives and targets depended on the most significant issues we identified in the baseline review.
During the review, we discovered our successful areas are Transport, biodiversity, and waste. The JTAs have done a lot of work with school streets, cycling, and walking to school-campaigns. The eco school council has now introduced paper recycling bins to each room and fewer plastic bottles in classes are now visible. Our garden and plants are thriving on he school grounds attracting biodiversity.
The next steps are to look at our low areas, which are water, marine, and global citizenship. Well-done results to the school councillors for conducting the environmental review. You can see the review results below.
Seerat and Haziq School councillors - did a thorough job with the energy audit, and it's great to see recognition for those who are actively participating in recycling and reducing energy consumption. The energy audit was conducted on Earth Day 22nd April.
Addressing the paper waste issue is crucial. Providing recycling bins specifically for paper in each class can make a significant difference. Encouraging students to use both sides of paper before discarding it is an excellent habit to instill, and finding alternative uses for blank sheets, like taking them home or offering them to the Nursery, is a thoughtful solution.
Regarding the lights left on during PE classes, perhaps implementing a system where students are responsible for ensuring lights are turned off after use could help. Similarly, for PCs left on, creating a protocol for shutting them down when not in use can save a considerable amount of energy.
The observation about lights being left on in areas like the staff room and ICT room when they're not in use highlights the need for increased awareness among staff about energy conservation. Simple reminders or notices about turning off lights when leaving a room can be effective in changing habits.
Overall, raising awareness about energy conservation and implementing practical solutions like designated recycling bins and turning off lights when not needed can contribute significantly to reducing the school's environmental impact, please find attached the energy audit report.
Spring 2024
The school council members from Tudor Primary School, along with Miss Besely and Mrs. Aggarwal, had a fantastic opportunity to showcase their eco-school project at the Ealing Council Empowering Students to be Upstanders1 Conference on Tuesday, February 27th.
Karan, Zoiya, and Rayaan (Years 6 and 5), demonstrated remarkable dedication and initiative by representing their school and discussing sustainability and climate action. Their presentation impressed an audience of 80 adults, earning praise from other speakers and leaders of Eco School England, and other Head Teachers.
The student's efforts in creating an eco-strategy and implementing sustainability initiatives at Tudor Primary School were commendable and inspiring. Their participation in the conference not only highlighted their achievements but also contributed to the broader goal of encouraging environmental consciousness and eco-friendly practices within schools and communities.
"The children did us proud and showed great dedication to the work they do as school council members as they participated throughout the conference. Congratulations to all our school members who have diligently worked over the past two years to uphold Tudor's values and foster a positive environment filled with respect and love. Your dedication and effort have truly made a difference in our school community. Keep up the excellent work". Miss Besely.
"All three were praised for being so articulate, confident, and clear" Mrs. Aggarwal
Well done to all our school members over the past two years who have worked hard every day to ensure Tudor respects and loves our school environment.
Tudor Primary received a total 4 Healthy Schools points to add to our point system.
Rayaan
At Tudor Primary School, our school council actively monitors waste in classrooms, enforcing a ban on plastic and promoting reusable water bottles. We did this weekly and each school council member checks every Friday to tally up how many plastic water bottles were brought in.
We also implemented paper bins in each classroom so the paper can be reused for example in the Nursery or for creative lessons. This helped us to reduce paper waste.
Karan
During the Spring Term, we introduced meat-free Mondays, promoting more plant-based food, we did this to change our eating habits and become more healthy as well as encouraging us to have a school meal at least once a week. This was done by meeting with the school catering team and deciding on what menu to use in compliance with the ingredients they could only use. This helped encourage more students to take up a school meal too. In April 2024 the canteen has also decided to use more plant-based dishes daily instead of just Mondays. This has improved our food waste too and also fewer children are now bringing in packed lunches which means less waste and children are having a full healthy meal at lunch times.
Zoiya
In the spring term 2023, we joined Planet Mark and became sustainability superstars, we took part in a full-day session of workshops and exercises. We explored climate change issues and discussed this using scientific facts and impacts. We investigated ways to make a change in how we can shop at home, and how to reduce food miles so that less food is transported from other countries to reduce pollution and emissions into the air.
We learned the benefits of growing our food at home instead, and how this can help reduce and help the rainforest's future.
We did an exercise to show if we were shoppers, learners, shouters, or doers to encourage our parents and other students to change habits in the way they shop and to make better choices to become more sustainable around our school environment and at home. For example, we asked everyone to grow their vegetables at home challenge. Shop at your local grocery store or local farms to help local businesses grow, this meant that we would help reduce food miles would mean less emissions in the air and learn how to eat healthy at home.
Rayaan
Did you know?
UK schools could reduce energy costs by £44 Million per year and prevent 625,000 tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere (that's an average saving of approximately £1300.00 per year, per school in the UK.
In our school community, we wanted to try and reduce our carbon footprint at least by 50%. So we started small and we are working towards this goal.
In the first spring term, we joined Planet Mark a sustainability certification measuring our carbon and social data to cut emissions around our school area.
We decided on which areas we wanted to try and control that would be simple yet effective for everyone to keep up with. We focused on three areas;
- Reuse – bring in reusable water bottles instead of plastic.
- Recycle – reduce waste like paper – use both sides of the paper for art lessons or donate to the Nursery. We also decided that we could recycle our uniforms by donating them to the school office to help families with low income.
- Reduce – In this area we decided to reduce food waste as mentioned earlier and to introduce a switch-off campaign around the school.
Karan
The switch-off campaign urged all children and staff to turn off appliances and lights when not in use. Then our energy bills were sent to Planet Mark, which led to a certificate. From the data, we found that the relative carbon footprint of our school was 0.2tCO2 per staff and pupil which was quite low.
Slide 11;
To encourage this we made posters to stick up in each room next to the light switches to ensure everyone is reminded to turn off lights when classrooms are empty.
Zoiya
Our goal was to become an eco-school and to ensure that the whole school community supported our eco-project, so we created a pledge, our 6-point pledge includes how we should behave and look after our environment in and out of school. This includes
- Being caring and keeping our school clean.
- Learning – by giving different ideas and taking action to be more sustainable
- Reducing – introducing recycling
- Eating – eating healthy and more plant-based food
- Travel – At Tudor, we also have a team of Junior Travel Ambassadors who monitor and encourage the school community to walk to school.
Rayaan
In the summer term, children surveyed their families on their recycling habits
The surveys revealed that 85% of families had low participation in understanding how to reduce our carbon footprint in terms of lack of resources
We then created with their families personalised recycling bins posters to promote our 3 R’s Recycle, Reuse, and Reduce.
We also took community action with our JTA’s, with the help of the Ealing council the children and the council implemented a rush hour restriction to Tudor Road to stop vehicles coming down the road during rush hour to improve the air quality and emissions on our school road.
Karan
In the summer term, the school council focused on sustainability at Wolfe Fields Nature Reserve. At the reserve, we learned sustainable practices like growing fruit, and looking after trees, and harvesting berries and apples. We explored the sensory garden and listened to nature sounds which taught us about mindfulness and the importance of a clean environment for wildlife. We observed a bee hut producing honey and learned that the reserve uses recycled materials to attract biodiversity.
Zoiya
Part of our next action plan is to prepare for our summer fair, the school council will be asking everyone to donate nearly new school uniforms which we will then put on a swap shop as part of our 3 R’s Reduce, Recycle, and Reuse campaign, and this will enable to get our whole school community involved.
Our action plan was set in September so we can monitor and evaluate our goals and see our progress, this is also a good way to showcase to our governors and teachers so everyone feels involved.
School Council Eco Day - Wear Green and Switch of Lights Launch Campaign 9th Feb
Autumn and Spring 2023-2024
This term we are learning about Climate Response. Climate change has been incredibly challenging. In the next few weeks I want you all to investigate the different roles and ways we can respond to help climate change, are you a doer, shopper, learner, or a shouter? A Doer is: what do we do to help the climate at school - (for example - you can pick up litter, recycle paper, travel to school on bikes or walk, less fuel in the air).
A Shopper is: how do you shop smart - (for example shop at your local store to reduce travel miles on food, and this way you support your local business, shop for more healthy food, less junk food, and less meat. Shop for recycled clothes from charity shops or reuse and upcycle your clothes, grow your food at home)
A Learner is: how do you learn about the climate, look at animals and their habitats, learn about the rainforests use your local library, read books about the environment, watch documentaries on the earth)
A Shouter: Teach others, and draw posters on how to save energy around the school and how to keep your environment clean.
Climate change is happening everywhere the rainforest is being affected, the weather is getting too warm or too cold. I want you all to look at ways you can help climate change and reduce your carbon footprint. Answer the following questions
Can you tell me what a carbon footprint is?
Are you a doer, shopper, learner, or shouter?
How can you change the ways you shop, learn, and do or teach others about climate change?
How will you use this in school?
Children are asked to create a switch-off lights posters to display around the school.
Summer Term 2 Project 2023
When St Georges heard how much the school council has done and about our achievements, Rev Ramsey invited the school council to the Wolfe Fields Nature Reserve. It was an amazing day here. This nature reserve is solely built by volunteers in the local community. Other schools have also been part of t and have created some amazing artwork, (an owl model and Noah’s ark model made all out of canned drinks and food.
At the reserve, we learned about how we can be more sustainable at home by growing our own fruit trees. We even got to pick berries, plums, and apples from the tree to take them home with us.
We looked at the sensory garden and learned how the sounds of nature can guide us and learned about mindfulness. Having a clean environment earns we are welcoming more wildlife into the community and this way the animals also feel safe and enjoy the nature around us.
We looked at the bee hut, where bees produced their own honey and the church then uses this to distribute to families and gatherings at the church.
We learned how recycled material can be used to create your own garden and help attract biodiversity in your local area. The children had to identify different insects around the reserve, from ladybirds, and bees, to tadpoles, and frogs, and even did a bit of bird watching.
We smelt and felt different plants that can be used to make tea at home, cakes, and various textures of leaves and their purpose.
This was a great way for our school council to end the year.
Summer Term 1 Project 2023
In the summer term, we wanted the school council to continue to reduce our theme on carbon footprint.
Children did a survey at home with their families, to show how many of their family members reduce, reuse and recycle at home. Children carried out a home recycling survey. The results showed that not many parents recycled at home, due to not having enough recycling bins at home or because families were just not aware. The children then encourage their families to take part in recycling but ask their families to help them create posters at home of their own monster recycling bins.
The members created some lovely posters and even characterise their recycling bins so that they could engage more people around the school and at home to keep on recycling.
The posters also summarised our three ‘R’s Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. The children have been using this and reminding children in class why saving energy and keeping our environment clean is beneficial to everyone.
All our work is displayed in our school council journal which is kept in the main office.