Autumn 1 2024: What is Eco? How everyone at The Willows does their best to care for the environment.

At The Willows we already

• Have a School Council that teaches us about our 4 school values; Care, Responsibility, Self-belief and Challenge
• Have a half termly eco focus. Past themes include climate change, global citizenship, brilliant bees, litter, transport and rewilding
• Recycle printer cartridges, pens, batteries, used stamps milk carton lids, soft plastic, cans and bottles, glasses and contact lenses
• Follow the Eco Schools programme to earn the Green Flag Award
• Raise money for global charities such as Ugandaid, Kitaid and the Memusi Foundation
• Grow plants and learn how to look after them in Miss Pickering’s Community Growing Project and Gardening Club.
• Encourage everyone to walk, scoot or ride to school to help reduce pollution and increase road safety around school.
• Share eco ideas through our school website and newsletter to help  the wider community to become more environmentally aware
• Pick up litter in school and celebrate our grounds by growing plants, doing sport, orienteering and Outdoor Club and Bear Grylls Club.
• Learn about citizenship and healthy living in PSHE, the world in Geography and materials in Science

In the future we will:

• Learn about how to be eco-friendly through a whole school assembly
• We will introduce our Eco Noticeboard and what information we can find on it
• Continue to reinforce our 4 school values though caring for our environment
• Continue to circulate the Eco Book Boxes so that all children can learn new facts and enjoy stories about looking after the environment
• The Eco Council will carry out an Environmental Review on our school
• We will then formulate an Action Plan with three main targets to work complete before June 2025
• We will apply for our Green Flag accreditation early summer 2025

Preparing our rewilding site!

Our Eco Focus for the summer term 2024 was ‘What is ’Rewilding’ and why should we be rewilding our planet?’

Mrs Mitchell and the Eco Council led KS1 and KS2 assemblies and we learnt that:

• Rewilding is a good way to show CARE for our environment.
• An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (the biodiversity) in a particular area.
• Biodiversity is every living thing on Earth; bacteria, fungi, plants, insects, animals, humans.
• An ecosystem has a chain of interactions between living organisms and their environment.
• Each organism needs the others to survive.
• Rewilding works to nurture a balance between people and the rest of nature so that both can thrive together.

How can we help at school?

• We will plant native hedging and sow wildflower seeds in our prepared rewilding area.
• We have sunk a shallow tray to collect rainwater to attract wildlife
• It will be closed it off to people.
• We hope to protect and extend it each year.

How can we help at home?

• You can let part of your garden grow wild.
• You can learn more about rewilding by reading books like ‘Mia’s Meadow’ or ‘The Art of Rewilding.’
• You can visit a rewilding website to learn more.
• https://www.rewildingbritain.org.uk/
• https://www.operationfuturehope.org/

Finally, I would like to say thank you to the amazing Eco Council this year. You are true eco warriors! And as always, thank you to all the children, parents and teachers who have helped The Willows to be eco-friendly in 2024!

Here are some of our amazing Eco Councillors looking after our school grounds by picking up litter.

Spring 1 2024

What is Climate Change and what can we do to help?

At The Willows we already:

• Participated in an assembly led by Trafford council about the importance of recycling how they recycle our waste.
• Give eco warrior certificates to those who demonstrate how to help look after the environment.
• Recycle soft and hard plastic, tins, paper, batteries, printer ink cartridges, milk carton lids, pens, glasses and contact lenses at our Recycling Station in the corridor.
• Use reusable water bottles and reuse hand soap bottles.
• Encourage everyone to walk to school and have held ‘Silly Socks and Happy Shoes’ days to promote this.                          
• Replaced most of our lighting to LED and installed hand dryers.
• Make bug hotels to encourage wildlife, hold gardening clubs and grow produce to share with the community.
• Compost our fruit waste, have made and use a leaf mould composter.
• Encourage everyone to eat more plant based food and hold meat free Mondays in the school canteen.

Through this focus we will:

• Learn about what Climate Change is through a whole school assembly and find out what simple things we can all do to help slow down global warming.
• Continue to build a collection of books about the environment for each class to access during ERIC time.
• Inform parents of our current focus and projects through the school newsletter and website.
• Link our environmental beliefs to our school values; Responsibility, Care, Challenge and in particular, Self-Belief that we can make a difference to global issues such as climate change.
• Continue to monitor our new curriculum and ways we can link environmental issues to our learning.

Autumn 2 2023

‘The Best Eco Books’ as recommended by The Willows Eco Council

At The Willows we already:

• Enjoy reading and borrowing books with an environmental theme from the school library       
• Listen to stories in some Eco Assemblies
• ‘Upcycle’ (recycle/reuse/resell) second hand books at The Willows Summer Fair
• List books on our Sonar curriculum documents (subject overviews) for each subject for each year group, many of which have environmental themes.
• Enjoy ERIC (Everyone Reading In Class) each day throughout school
• Have new books that link to out new Literacy curriculum, some of which are linked to respecting the environment

Through this focus we will:

• Learn about new book releases and old favourites in our Eco Assembly where each Eco Council member will recommend a book to the school. This will be passed on via the school newsletter, school website and the Eco Board
• Begin to make collections of Eco books for KS1 and KS2 with the hope that each box will visit a classroom for a few weeks to enhance ERIC time. Possibly ask for donations or support from the PTA
• Encourage everyone to recycle or donate books they no longer need, for example to the free local bookshop in Sale.
• Encourage all members of our school community to buy second hand books if possible in order to reduce our carbon footprint
• Promote and highlight books around school that link to the current half termly eco focus, such as climate change, biodiversity, clean air, global citizenship, waste, healthy living, litter, saving energy and transport

Autumn 1 2023

Global Citizenship: Developing an awareness and sense of responsibility for the world as a whole.

At The Willows we already

• Promote Respect and Responsibility through Our School Values.
• Learn about the world in our broad curriculum, especially in Geography.
• We also look at events in History that we can learn from to make ourselves better citizens today.
• Celebrate the similarities and differences between each other as part of our PSHE learning.
• Celebrate Black History Month. This year the whole school participated in a singing assembly.
• Collected donated football kits and equipment for the charity Kitaid.
• Held an ‘Own Clothes Day’ and raised over £400 to help UgandAid build a rainwater harvesting plant in Uganda.
• Participated in a ‘Diversity Day,’ learning about different cultures.
• Learn about a new language every half term. So far these have included Spanish and Sign Language.

Through this theme we will

• Continue to welcome new members into our school community and enjoy getting to know them and learning about languages, cultures, interests and lifestyles that are different to our own.
• Revise what we know about Global Citizenship in an assembly and learn about the Memusi Charity who work directly with communities & schools in Kenya to provide access to quality education.
• Hold an ‘Own Clothes Day’ on Fri 3rd Nov and wear red, green and black (as in the Kenyan flag) to raise money for the Memusi Foundation.
• Promote the principle that all people should have equal opportunity, using the example of the Memusi Foundation who "believe that Education is the primary route out of poverty for every child.”
• Year 6 will write letters to children at the Memusi School, Magadi, Kenya about themselves and The Willows and the Kenyan children will reply, telling them all about their life In Kenya.
• To find out more about this charity https://www.memusifoundation.org.uk/