Eco work

The Eco Journey at Chilton Primary School

Our eco journey started back in 2002 and was prompted by two things. We moved into a new building and were surrounded by something which resembled a ploughed field- so we had an urgent need to do something with our school grounds. The second thing was the arrival of Derek Dodd as our new school caretaker. He arrived with a great deal of enthusiasm for his job, a very keen interest in eco ideas and a burning ambition to win a green flag.

Derek became our eco co-ordinator and we set up the school eco team which was combined with the school council. The children designed their own eco badge, which Derek made on the school badge machine and we were off. We are now 7 years down the line and have covered a tremendous amount of work- the bronze, silver and gold awards as well as 3 reviews of the green flag itself. For us it is ongoing and still very exciting.

Staff meetings and assemblies regularly informed staff and children with the eco team taking a lead role. Newsletters and the school website were good ways of informing the parents. Governors also came to eco team meetings- they had expertise on a variety of things and talked about H&S and energy.

We have regular meetings with the eco team. A member of the eco team writes the minutes and the team members take the minutes back to their classes. Activities need to be planned into classroom time and for our last green flag review we decided to cover some of our work in an Eco Book week, which fitted nicely within our topic based curriculum. The whole school was involved in eco activities for the week- investigations, art work, reading eco stories, following up eco issues- the Y5 looked at water shortage issues over the world. By the end of the week each class produced a book and a presentation on their work and parent and governors were invited to the presentations.

The children were involved in the planning and took responsibility for tasks within the projects. They became energy monitors, designed badges, collected recycling boxes, took minutes of meetings, help to clear the pond area. They are the ones who will carry the project through with their enthusiasm. They will also make parents aware of what they are doing in school.

We have some good memories of the exciting times we have had with eco work.

Even tidying up is fun given the right clothes and tools. We regularly have workparties to tidy up the pond area and the sensory garden. There is no shortage of volunteers. The long armed litter pickers are always being asked for at lunchtimes to do litter duty.
As a result of eco work we now have an annual outdoor afternoon when we take the whole school outside and have a carousel of outdoor activities which everyone takes part in. These range from planting bulbs, to cutting back hedges, natural colour hunts, unnatural trails, sketching, model making, sculptures out of natural materials. Lastly the school chef joins in and prepares vegetable soup with children ready to sell at the end of the afternoon. We now combine this with November 5th, with every class making a guy and children during the afternoon collecting wood for the fire. During the evening families come back to school to watch their guy being burnt and having hot dogs and baked potatoes around the fire.
We also had biodiversity in action when our FSU teacher decided to have an incubator in class and suddenly we were home to 2 ducklings wandering up and down the corridor and later to 4 mini chickens.

Involving the local community adds tremendous strength to activities.

We are very good at recycling and have set up what the children call a recycling machine outside. We sent messages out to the local village explaining what we were doing and we have regular deliveries of cans to crush. Now it is a favourite activity at lunchtimes.
We have a large recycling plant in the village and while the children aren’t allowed to visit because of H&S regulations, we have had visitors from the plant come to eco meetings and explain to the children how large scale recycling works.
At Rutherfords next door to the school, we have an experimental wind turbine station. During our energy project, the eco team were able to spend an afternoon with the scientists and talk to them about the benefits of a wind turbine. There is nothing brings an energy topic to life more than standing under one of these enormous wind turbines, although our visit to Didcot power station was also magic.
Our school is next door to a Wyvale Garden Centre. Derek regularly goes over and keeps an eye on unwanted articles, special offers on plants etc. The garden centre staff are also brilliant at welcoming groups of children who go to select plants for our gardens, seek answers for questionnaires or to do some research.
When we built our sensory garden, we worked with UKAEA who were operating some team building days. This exercise took the shape of a group of people working on particular projects for a number of days to be of service to the community and to improve team skills by working in a different place. One of our teachers went on a course at Hill End and came back with a plan. A parent who is a landscape gardener assisted with design and project management and we had five teambuilding days when our sensory garden was built and planted, with children being involved in the final stages of the project. Now we have an area where the children can sketch, watch grapes and figs grow, smell the curry plant and general experience the wonderful world of plants.

There are tremendous benefits of concentrating on eco work in school. Looking back our school has gained so much. It was a result of a parent eco questionnaire that we decided to do something about our miserable school dinners. We have a school population of 200 and had a take up of 25 meals each day. We now have our own chef who produces approx 130 meals each day, runs cooking clubs and class tasting sessions- not to mention delicious adult meals too.

Our school grounds have changed out of all recognition- a teletubby land, a trimtrail and an outside stage. We have built an F1 play area including an outside classroom. I visited several other outside play areas and then drew up a design for our own. We now have a beautiful outside area full of challenging activities for F1s.

We have made some raised vegetable plots for the F1 class to grow their own produce. Last year we had a magnificent harvest of peas, carrots, lettuces and beans. We made lettuce sandwiches and all the children decided they liked school lettuce-it definitely tasted different from the home stuff. The potatoes were the most magical- the children planted and watched them grow, but did not quite believe that actual potatoes would grow. Digging up the crop in the summer was like finding treasure for the children- unbelievable excitement.

We always have plans for the future. Our next eco project is to redevelop the old swimming pool area- we want to make a science trail using as many recycled materials as possible. We’ve had a lot of fun and it has transformed our school.

Chilton Primary School Downside Chilton Nr Didcot Oxfordshire OX11 0PQ
Telephone: 01235 834263 Fax: 01235 828486 E-mail: