Green Team

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Green Team 2011-12

The new Green Team have begun the year by replacing lost light switch signs, reminding people to save energy at every opportunity.

They have made bird food holders from empty milk cartons which have then been filled with dried worms and mixed seeds. The robins are already using them, which they attached to trees in the nature area, and we have found that they prefer the worms! The pigeons are enjoying what is dropped below the trees.

The Green Team are now beginning a water saving campaign. We also hope to join Transition Town Market Harborough with their sustainable project activitie one of which is buying an apple press for the use of local people who would like to turn their home-grown apples into juice. The Green Team were allowed to sample one of the products (see below!).

Green Team 2010 -11

The GT began by launching their main project for the year which was to promote & encourage waste free packed lunches (WFPLs). This was applauded by the cook, Mrs Douglas, who was appalled at the amount of uneaten food being left on the hall floor or in bins, as well as paper and plastic rubbish. The GT photographed, recorded and weighed the waste and this amounted to an incredible 4.5kg each day on average.

At this meeting a new dashboard was set up for GT members on the school VLE. It contains sites which may be of interest to them.

The GT set up a bin-watch rota so that they could encourage children to take their packed lunch waste home rather than put it in the school-dinner bin. They made posters to encourage people to bring less food, less waste and to take home what wasn’t needed at school.

In March, an Eco-review was undertaken by the GT who had to find out the answers to questions relating to energy, litter, waste, water, transport, healthy living, bio-diversity, school grounds, global perspectives and pupil participation.

Before Easter, the GT began to make PowerPoint presentations for assembly about WFPLs. These were eventually amalgamated into one and the GT had its own assembly which was finished off nicely with The Green Team Rap! They also launched a poster competition for a catchy way to promote WFPLs. When the winning entry was judged, examples of children’s own WFPLs were shown and 2 merits were given for every WFPL that children brought.

The GT have visited the Nature Area and have discovered that we have lost our palm tree to the harsh winter and the prolonged season of below freezing temperatures could also be the reason why there has been no frog-spawn in our pond; not even a frog or toad was spotted!

The last two meetings of the year were spent writing persuasive letters to parents encouraging them to provide their children with healthy, waste-free packed lunches. Let’s hope the bins weigh less next year!

JULY 2008 - We became the first school in the UK to receive gold from the Woodland Trust Green Tree Schools Award. This has come about through recycling, planting and reducing CO2 emissions.

Green Team

This is Karen Letten from The Woodland Trust presenting The Green Team with our Gold award.

The Green Team is made up of a representative from each KS2 class. We are children who are interested in environmental issues which particularly affect the school. We meet once a month to discuss issues, make suggestions, start campaigns and raise awareness of green issues.

Scroll down for photos of our activities.

We have been awarded our third green Eco flag in 2009.

Because of our achievements, we were asked by Robert Smythe secondary school, in Market Harborough, to create an assembly for 400 pupils there to inform them of how we got our flag. They want to be the first secondary school in the district to get one!

We have led the Recycling Pledges campaign within school which earned us points to buy musical instruments with. The person who collected the most pledges won an MP3 player!

We enjoy raising awareness about ecological issues and in support of the WWFs campaign to Save The Tiger, we had a tiger day when we came to school dressed as cats, did lots of work about the tiger, India and why some species become endangered. We raised 300pounds and had a fabulous day. Year 5 (2008) adopted a Black Rhino through the WWF and will continue raising money to support it while they are in Year 6.

We collect printer cartridges for recycling and the money we make is used to buy items for the school grounds. We have already purchased a series of wildlife habitat boxes, a feeding station and a bird-bath.

We also recycle old mobile phones and the money goes to a Cystic Fibrosis charity.

We are a Healthy School and at break, the fruit waste is collected and composted in a bin by the allotment. The vegetables are watered with rainwater collected in the water butts.

We have a greenhouse for growing projects.

We helped to plant a willow maze on the school field in 2004. We re-weave it every year to strengthen it.

We have a beautiful nature area that has a wooden bridge over a blue gravel stream. We grow fruit here and the nature trail takes you around the bushes and trees. There is a canopied bandstand here where we sit for a story on a hot day! We have a wild area near to the pond too. There is a hedgehogs hibernation box here. This is all overlooked by tall trees with nesting boxes in them.

We reuse and recycle as much paper as we can in school.

Old coloured paper on display boards is still good enough for craft.

Even the shredded documents make great bedding for our guinea pigs!

Market Harborough is now a FAIRTRADE town and we do our bit too. Every child who brings in a FAIRTRADE wrapper receives two merits and we have a huge display to show all the products that we have sampled. A farmer from Chile came to tell us about how she produces FAIRTRADE honey and the difference FAIRTRADE has made to her life. See our Fairtrade page to see how we became the first Fairtrade school in Market Harborough.

ECO-TOWN PROPOSALS

Find out what some of our children thought about the Eco-town proposals in June 2008! This was recorded and broadcast on Radio Leicester

Carrier Bags Eco-Board June 08

Cragrats Recycling Roadshow

Reduce Your Eggcessive Waste this Easter

The A-Z of Recycling Tips

Making the Eco-Warriors Float

From Milk Carton to Easter Bunny Basket

Our New Recycling Boxes for Around School

Save the Albatross Campaign

From Seeds to Trees (Woodland Trust)

Packing Printing Cartridges to Recycle

March 2008

Daniel H in Year 3 has won the County Council competition to design a poster for a bus to encourage people to 'Reduce Your Egg-cessive Waste This Easter'. He has been presented with some lovely prizes and the school has received 200 pounds of ESPO vouchers.