Ravensthorpe CE (VC) Junior School

At Ravensthorpe CE (VC) Junior School, we believe in improving our environment and working towards being a greener, more sustainable school. We have created our Eco Council which will work towards combating the ongoing environmental issues surrounding our local area and even the world we live in!

As a council, we hold regular meetings throughout the year to discuss environmental issues within school and the community. We also look at global issues (and the positive impact we can have).

We believe that our pupils should have a voice, moving the school forward to become more 'green'. The council has a heavy involvement in organising school fundraising events to help benefit everyone.

The Eco Council is made up of one representative from each class who will pledge to move us towards improving our environment. These children are then responsible for completing an environmental review from which we continue our journey as Eco Leaders.

To thank our Eco Council for working so hard over the past year, we arranged an end of year picnic in our woodland area. To prepare for this, our councillors made some eco-friendly bunting for tree decorations and they had the opportunity to bring in an array of healthy snacks for the event as well as eat some provided by school. During our picnic, we enjoyed some quiet time under the trees, chatted about the past year and what we are looking forward to over the next academic year. We also took part in some activities, such as leaf rubbing and got competitive in a twig relay race. This was a lovely way to end the year with our Eco Councillors and we cannot wait to see what we conquer in the future.

• As part of our efforts in reducing littering, we have organised a litter workshop with Kirklees Council.
• Together, we have worked with Ravensthorpe in Bloom to help with planting at the Greenwood Centre and within the local area.
• We have created posters around school to ask for seed and flower donations so we could plant at the front of our school.
• As part of our efforts in reducing our school’s CO2 emissions, our Eco Councillors made notices encouraging everyone to do their bit around the school.
• As part of our efforts in reducing energy costs, we created an energy newsletter that we placed in each classroom and put on our website to inform parents at home about how to reduce energy.
• As part of our efforts in encouraging recycling, we invited Kirklees Council into school and organised a whole school workshop on the three Rs of waste management.
• At school, we have organised a Pre-Loved non-uniform day to encourage everyone to reduce, reuse and recycle. On this day, children wore their sibling’s clothing, charity shop purchases or even their favourite pre-worn fancy dress outfits.

As part of the Move More Ravensthorpe project, our Eco and Wellbeing Councillors joined forces to help Kirklees Council plan how to improve Holroyd Park for the Ravensthorpe community. During the morning, the children had the opportunity to meet with Sophie and Tommy from Kirklees Council to discuss the plans for improvement and share what they would love to see in their local park. We also took a trip to Holroyd Park, identified good areas to invest in as well as choose from a variety of park equipment that the children think will be best utilised in the park. Finally, to end the visit, our children had the opportunity to design aspects of a community mural that is being drawn inside of the MUGA (Multi-Use Games Area) within the park. Our councillors loved working on the Move More project and cannot wait to see their visions come to fruition by hopefully making it a safer, cleaner and more welcoming park for locals to get active.

As part of the new Move More Ravensthorpe initiative, children were asked to design and create a poster or write a poem to help to stop fly tipping and littering in Ravensthorpe. All across Ravensthorpe, children took part in the competition and, out of hundreds of entries, two individuals in Year 5 were winners! The children won Love to Shop vouchers to spend in any way they wish. As a school, we were incredibly proud of these individuals and, to commemorate their hard work and effort, these pieces of work were copied, framed and given back to the individuals to save as a keepsake during our Stars of the Week assembly by Sofie from the Move More Ravensthorpe initiative itself.

Second-Hand Clothes Day

At the start of the spring term, the Eco Council organised a Second-Hand Clothes Day to promote sustainability within our school. This encouraged both pupils and teachers to wear hand-me-downs, charity shop bargains or even swap clothes with a sibling or friend for the day.  The day enabled our pupils to be mindful of the three Rs – reduce, reuse and recycle. Also, it was a greener and more inclusive way to try to raise some money for future Eco Council endeavours throughout the year.

Mirfield Garden Centre

This year the Eco Council aimed to improve the entrance of our school, near the reception area. To do this, they had the idea of planting evergreens and perennials in the planters within the car park so we organised a trip to our local garden centre for inspiration. Together, the council visited Mirfield Garden Centre, made notes, and took pictures of flowers that they believed would help improve the look of the front of our school. This gave the children the opportunity to see a range of plants and flowers and learn how best to take care of them.

Planting

Following on from the Eco Council’s Garden Centre visit, we met again to make an order for the flowers we would like to see at the front of our school with the money raised from our Second Hand Clothes Day. Some of our plants included primroses, Jasminum polyanthum, Lavender ‘Grosso’ and rhododendrons. When they arrived, the Eco Council spent an afternoon planting their chosen flowers in a range of planters outside of school. We have further plans in the future to plant more flowers in the remainder of the planters that we have around our school grounds.

During the summer term, our Eco Council has taken part in two litter picking sessions to help make the main paths surrounding our school gates more attractive and appealing to those walking to and from school. During these sessions, our councillors managed to fill over 10 large bin bags which they then brought back to school to dispose of in our school skip. Many of our councillors were disheartened over how much litter is surrounding the streets of Ravensthorpe so we aim to do even more in the upcoming years to discourage this from happening.

Natural pebble art

As a way to improve the look of our outdoor spaces around school, our Eco Council created natural pebble art. In order to do this, we resourced some pebbles of different sizes and bought acrylic pens and mod podge sealer so the paint designs do not wear away. These pebbles will serve their purpose to decorate planters around school, our outdoor classroom and our wildlife area so everyone can enjoy them.