Staff and pupils at Stepaside CP School have spent a week looking at green issues, with classes taking part in projects on energy and recycling, as well as wearing green to raise awareness of environmental matters.

“Although Eco topics run through our curriculum all year round, the school council decided to hold a Green Week to pull together all our work and focus the school and the families of ways to help the planet,” commented Mrs. Chandler-Hall, assistant headteacher and school council teacher lead.

Pupils were encouraged to walk to school as much as possible during the week, with Year 5 and 6 pupils then making graphs of each class to show how many had walked.

This was used to explain how much less pollution was made from the school run when pupils walk to the facility.

Many classes took part in work on energy and recycling and continued their topic work on the rainforest and bees.

Pupils and staff also dressed in green on Friday to raise awareness of environmental issues.

On Friday the whole school participated in a ‘No Electricity Day’ No devices were allowed, no lights, no kettles for the staff at break and lunch time, snack time was bread and butter rather than toast!

Meter readings were taken all week to see how much less we would use on the day.

“The daytime reading was very similar to the night time reading, meaning we actually only used three units of electricity ourselves during the day as opposed to an average of 20 units on the other four days,” explained Mrs. Theresa Williams, ECO Schools co-ordinator.

“That is quite a difference and although we need to power some things during the day it did make us all more aware of the power we use.”

The school are hoping to renew their ECO schools award this month and have been busy collating their evidence from the last three years.

One of the popular projects this year has been on the school grounds with classes growing vegetables and sunflowers.

The school council have also encouraged everyone to eat healthy packed lunches or choose school meals.

They have purchased new signs to raise pupil’s awareness of the different food groups. Reducing waste has been an ongoing project at the school over the years and the Nursery had a recycling walk around the school grounds.

Pupils in Dosbarth Wiwer conducted a litter survey on the drive and school site whilst Dosbarth Draenog took part in a presentation on how we can save money on our waste bill at the same time as saving the planet by recycling more in the classrooms.

Dosbath Cadno produced some very detailed project work on bees and Dosbarth Cwningen made some fantastic posters about saving energy.

The whole school have had virtual workshops by DWR Cymru about saving water, these were very popular and lead to some fantastic home learning projects during lockdown.

Global citizenship forms part of the award and pupils are always keen to make sure that they support local, national and international charities.

This term they helped a dress down day for Sandy Bear Child bereavement charity.

Recognising the rights of every child is important to everyone at Stepaside CP School and the pupils also designed anti bullying leaflets, posters and led assemblies on this topic.

This is just a snapshot of the school’s ECO work and it is looking forward to being able to fly its green flag. The school though is in need of a flagpole to put its flag on so if anyone can help in any way please contact them.