At Overdale Junior School, we are trying to look at the environment: both locally and around the world. We are working with Eco Schools to be sustainable in all areas of our school’s life. Recently, we obtained our silver award and earned our second Green Flag as part of Eco Schools at the end of November 2018!
Our eco committee is called EcOverdale and we meet weekly to help move the school closer to its goals. We plan projects, monitor their success and have fun looking after our school grounds and buildings sustainably. We have looked at water, transport, energy, our school grounds and recycling. Outside of the school, we were instrumental in helping set up the Eco School and Friends of the Earth competition “Postcard to Paris”: one of our banners even went to Paris for the climate conference! We have been to local Eco Conferences to be inspired on how to develop our school.
We have a range of clubs within the school with a sustainable agenda:
Outdoor Club (meets in the summer and early autumn term) works to develop specific areas of our school grounds e.g. the pond, rockery or wild flower meadow.
Greenfingers (meets 3 lunchtimes each week) is a gardening club which maintains and develops our food growing areas.
Litter Picking Heroes (meets every Wednesday lunchtime) sees children clearing the school of litter.
Two Wheeler Tuesday is every Tuesday to encourage children to cycle or scoot to school.
Bike Breakfast is a once a term event on Two Wheeler (next one is Tuesday 5th February). From 815, there is breakfast available in the Healthy Hut and an opportunity to show your safer route to school on a map.
We have a couple of projects which allow the children on-going opportunities to live sustainably:
Snackalicious is a tuck shop which is operated by some of our Year 6 pupils. It allows the children to develop healthy eating habits.
Little Rotters collect compostable waste from around the school (kitchens, staff room, tuck shop, cookery lessons) and creates new soil for use in the school gardens.
At Overdale, we have also developed sustainability within our curriculum:
Food Routes, which covers healthy eating, seasonal and ethical food as well as using food from the school gardens and composting vegetable and fruit waste.
Outdoor Education, which allows children to have their lessons outside covering a range of curriculum areas including Maths, Science, Geography and English.
Forest School, which allows the children to enjoy their outdoor environment and learn to value all that it has to offer: exploration, games, team-building activities and risk taking opportunities such as lighting fires and using tools.
Sustainability Lessons, where the children can engage with an environmental topic and learn ways in which they can care for the earth.
Within our classes, there is an Energy Monitor who looks to support the class with their sustainable behaviour and we have recently written an Eco Code which sets out our mission for caring for our planet.
Recycling old pens - You can recycle your old pens (biros, highlighters, felt-tips and handswriting pens) at school. The pens can be put into the box in the Browett Entrance where they will be sent to Terracycle . They will be made into new products such as watering cans, bins and tables. Please see the information sheet below foe more information.
Recycling Crisp Packets - Children and families can now recycle empty crisp packets in the collection box in the Browett entrance. Please can they be posted without any other materials (ie take them out of plastic bags) and please do not make them into triangles (ie keep them flat). They will then be posted to Terracycle (where we recycle our pens) and turned into plastic pellets ready to be made into new plastic products. Please see the poster below for further details.
