A recent donation of £300 to Abbey Gates Primary School from our Rotary Club has helped towards their ECO project, which is being developed as an extension to their link with the national KAP (Kids Against Plastic) charity.
Last year the Lead teacher, Keeley Bowell, achieved the green flag award for their work based around litter, waste, global citizenship, and energy. A creative plan, appointing energy monitors who regularly checked in on classes to ensure that they were being energy efficient and tracking the school’s energy usage across the year. As an element of this work, they also installed raised beds which are being used to grow and harvest their own fruit and vegetables.
The pupils took part in the ‘Great British Spring Clean’ and held weekly litter picking opportunities in school. The ECO team implemented a crisp packet collection station and these were then turned into survival blankets by a member of staff. In order to reduce, reuse and recycle, the children were keen to set up a weekly book swap that could be used by their fellow pupils. To this end they created a special “Book Swap Shop”, in a bespoke shed, which is regularly accessed on a daily basis.
This year Keeley and her pupils are continuing their hard work with a focus on waste, marine life and biodiversity. The children are keen to raise the profile of ocean pollution and the impact this has on marine life by reducing the amount of single use plastic in school and banning the use of glitter and balloons! The children and families at Abbey Gates are busy collecting bottle tops and lids to use in a large-scale piece of art to raise awareness of the effect of plastic pollution on marine life.
The next ambitious step is to install a recycling station for difficult to recycle items such as pens, batteries and crisp packets that can be easily accessed by the school community.