Thorner C of E

Eco-Schools Green Flag Award

We are thrilled to announce that we have received confirmation that we have achieved our Eco-Schools Green Flag Award, recognising the work we have done as a school to learn about environmental issues as part of our curriculum and to take action to look after the environment, both in school and in the local community.  Our flag and certificate have now arrived. 

Written assessment from Eco-Schools Green Flag Award: 

We are very pleased to tell you that you and your Eco-Committee at Thorner C Of E Primary School have been awarded an Eco-Schools Green Flag.

We reviewed your application and noted the following:

We like your approach to appointing the Eco-Committee members whereby you use your elected school council. It is wonderful to hear that the children have developed their confidence, growth mindset and skills in leadership, active citizenship and how to work in a team! It is clear that your approach to the Eco-Committee demonstrates a proactive, inclusive and educational approach to the programme. It is impressive to see! We also like how your Eco-Committee communicates their work in a variety of ways. For example, it is great to hear that they have informed others via school assemblies and your Eco-Board in your school hall. You also use social media to communicate with external stakeholders. This approach shows how valued and embedded the ideas underpinning the Eco-Schools programme are in your school! It was really great to read how your Environmental Review provided the basis for the projects in your Action Plan and helped you identify the areas you need to focus on. We like that you say that you informed the school through a whole school assembly and that the review is displayed on your Eco board located in the school hall. Your inclusive and educational approach to the process demonstrates a reflective and considered approach to your Eco-Schools work - this is a great skill that we can all learn from! You’ve clearly taken great efforts to connect your biodiversity, litter and school grounds projects happening across the school and embedding work into curriculum and everyday school life in a really impactful way. This is really inspiring and clever. Your Action Planning is great! The actions that you planned out were SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time Bound). This is important as it helps to achieve progress and empower your Eco-Committee. It was also great to see accountability and monitoring marked in your Action Plans and that you identify a range of creative actions. We like how your punchy Eco-Code has ideas and calls for action for all to get behind, and some important ideas to help protect your local environment! Your curriculum links were really clear and creative! For example, we like that you used active learning strategies and used a cross-curricular approach to focus on creating a culture for creating a sustainable future. For example, in science lessons you encouraged your children to research and write about the oceans and how litter, particularly plastic, is affecting Ocean life and killing sea creatures. You also created your own water dance in PE lessons! This kind of creative and practical pedagogical work hopefully helps the children to create lovely memories and approach these important topics in fresh and relevant ways, and is a great way to encourage them to take pride and ownership of their local environment. You've also clearly looked both internally and externally and engaged with a range of different stakeholders, including your work with Keep Britain Tidy and the Bag2school initiative Your children also took part in weeding and litter picking on your village green for the Queen's Jubilee. This kind of outreach work is a good example of the collaborative approach we will all need to adopt to help protect and improve our environment - your application made us feel really positive for the future! Your achievements this year have been lovely to hear about. It is wonderful to see that your children are keen to protect the environment, and this is in large part due to the actions and attitudes of your staff in regards to setting an example in raising the importance of taking care of our planet. It is inspiring to hear that your greatest success was planting so many wildflower seeds in order to encourage bees and butterflies. It is great to hear that the children made some fantastic posters informing people about things they should and should not do to ensure that your local environment is looked after. It is also inspiring to see pictures of all the litter you have picked up! All of these efforts show how embedded the values of the Eco-Schools initiative are within your school, well done everyone!

Congratulations to everyone for the great work you have managed to do. You should all be very proud of your amazing work and the great application you have submitted. You've really earned your Green Flag Award!