Eco-Schools Teacher Notes

Eco-Schools is an environmental education programme, managed in England by the environmental charityKeep Britain Tidy, the anti-litter campaign for England. The Programme's official start was in 1994 and is now run in53 countries around the world, linking more than 40,000 schools on their sustainable journey. Following a simple framework, Eco-Schools can help enhance the curriculum and get the whole school working together to support the environment as an integral part of school life. Schools can work towards one of the three award levels: Bronze, Silver and Green Flag (the highest award). Schools that have held continuous green flag status for more than 4 years can also apply for Ambassador status. You will be surprised at how much already happens in your school – use this document and our resources to guide and support you on your Eco-Schools journey.

Setting up your Eco Team

  • The main focus is for the team to be child led
  • Start with an assembly so the whole school know the plan and feel enthused to be involved (see suggested assembly)
  • Each class could vote in an Eco Rep on their ‘green’ credentials
  • Keep long serving keen members as an asset!
  • Give other children a chance to join to keep the team fresh
  • Start with a small team and grow it through word of mouth or bring a friend
  • Try and have a mix of ages from across the school
  • Elect a chair every term/ every other term
  • Have one child act as the secretary to produce minutes each week helping the chair to manage the meeting (see agenda and minute example resources)
  • Nominate someone different each week to take a weekly register
  • Involve parents and talk to or write to your governors to get someone to come to some of your meetings (having an adult outside of school staff is essential for Green Flag status)
  • Share updates in staff meetings
  • Build on children’s interests and encourage them to try them out
  • You don’t have to meet every week – maybe just once a term to keep things ticking over, or ad hoc when there’s a campaign to run e.g Waste Week
  • Delegate for campaigns – to staff as well as children
  • Tap into staff interests and strengths e.g gardening, wildlife
  • Consider more diverse roles such as a child in charge of taking photographs, another keeping a spreadsheet of finances (fit to children’s strengths)
  • Be prepared for children to lose interest and that you may need to recruit again… you will find some absolute stalwarts, others will be more short lived in their enthusiasm
  • Consider having guest members such as the caretaker and school business manager who may not attend meetings but who you could send minutes to. A guest in a meeting is often great motivation.
  • Sit back and let the children lead!

Environmental Review (including a summary to focus your Action Plan)

Carry out your environmental review (it needs to be done once every 12 months) – use our child friendly format for them to highlight smiley faces

Ideas for carrying out Environmental Review:

  • Email it out for all classes to complete together and collate results – interesting to see how much children know about e.g recycling facilities across school
  • Send groups of children off to interview the Headteacher, Caretaker/Site Manager, Kitchen Staff etc
  • Complete Review in your Green Committee meeting
  • Short on time? Consider doing just some aspects so you are not overwhelmed.

Environmental Review Summary

Use the Environmental Review Summary to help children pick things out of the Environmental Review that need action. You can then formalise these in your action plan.

Action Plan

Use this to guide your Eco-Schools journey. Choose priorities from your Environmental Review Summary and discuss ideas for how to improve areas in school. How can you raise awareness? How can you reduce the impact on the environment?

Use the Nine Topics that make up Eco-Schools to complete your action plan (see template example). Start small with three or four topics; you will cover more of the topics as you progress to Green Flag and for Green Flag renewals. It is essential for all award levels that you cover Energy as one of your topics.Your Action Plan should be reviewed regularly through the year. We suggest renewing/update each year alongside your annual Environmental Review.Eco-Schools requires renewal every two years for your award status to remain active.

Eco Code

Use the themes from your Action Plan to create your whole school Eco Code. You could do an acrostic poem, or ask each class to come up with a sentence. This is a requirement for Silver, and for Green Flag there needs to be a copy in each classroom. Your Eco Code needs to be shared with the whole school community.

Quick wins

Stuck for ideas? Need some quick wins to help you on your journey? See our suggestions on the Quick Wins document.

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