Members of Bridgnorth Endowed’s Eco Committee have received the fantastic news that they’ve finally achieved Eco-Schools Green Flag status, after working tirelessly to boost the school’s environmental credentials.
Led by languages teacher, Mrs Porter, the group includes Year 8 students, Adam Hewer and Nathan Roberts, and Thomas Brettle from Year 9.
Mrs Porter commented: “A special mention must go to Adam, who has come to Eco Club every single week since September. I’d like to thank both him and Nathan for all of their hard work this year, and of course Thomas, who joined us more recently to help with the planting.”
“We’re delighted with the award and hope this helps us to encourage more pupils to get involved with the great work we’re doing.”
The seven-step framework, adopted by schools in over 70 countries around the world, is all about galvanising young people into taking positive action by introducing environmental change in their schools and local communities.
Tackling each step with great gusto, the BES Team carried out a full environmental review of the school to spot any gaps in existing environmental activity, and decided to focus on reducing litter, cutting waste, and improving the biodiversity of school grounds.
They drew up a plan of action and put BES right at the heart of their Eco Code with their promise to work towards a ‘Better Environmentally-Friendly Space’.
School activities included litter picking sessions, a plastic bottle recycling poster competition, making and installing bug hotels, and growing aromatic plants to attract insects to the school grounds.
Keen to back national initiatives too, they took part in campaigns such as the ‘Empties Please’ cartridge recycling scheme, Greenpeace’s ‘Big Plastic Count’, and Keep Britain Tidy’s ‘Great Big School Clean’.
But the work didn’t stop there. The accreditation also asked for environmental actions to be linked to the school curriculum as a way of reinforcing the message.
To achieve this, as part of their English lessons, Year 10 students now analyse Greta Thunberg’s speech to parliament in the context of analysing the purpose, audience and layout as an innovative way of getting students to read, study and digest the speech.
Praising the BES team, Eco-Schools concluded: “In summary, we think you’ve produced a great year of work. You’ve more than earned your Green Flag accreditation!”
Huge congratulations to the team on their hard work and dedication in achieving Eco-Schools status for BES.
