We are extremely proud and pleased to announce that our school were once again awarded ECO School status with Distinction. Well done to the ECO Council of 2024 - 2025 for all their hard work in helping us to achieve this prestigious award.

This is what Keep Britain had to say about our application:

ECO COUNCIL 2025 - 2026

We are pleased to announce our new ECO Council for 2025 to 2026. Congratulations to all of you and we are sure that you will do a fantastic job this year. Let's aim for our third distinction again this year!

Y1EP - Kaiden

Y1KA - Daisy

Y2BD - SAYLOR

Y2GJ - Olivia

Y3KW - Sophie

Y3CP - Ismail

Y4CW - Luca

Y4SM - Fatima

Y5JF - Ash

Y5TY - James

Y6HM - Erin and Sarah

Y6LC - Oliver and Harper

TREE PLANTING WITH THE CANAL AND RIVER TRUST

On Friday 14th November 2025, our school were visited by the Canal and River Trust who brought with them lots of hedgerows and trees to plant alongside the stretch of canal adjacent to our school playground. Volunteers from Y4, Y5 and Y6 planted in teams in the morning with Miss Banks. After lunch, the ECO Council and myself took over and planted the remainder of the stock. Together, we planted over £800 of trees all donated by the Woodland Trust and the Medlock Regeneration Programme. Despite the weather, which was absolutely freezing and blowing a gale, our children did an amazing job and the staff from the Canal and River Trust thought our children were brilliant so well done to everyone. The Tameside Reporter came along to see what we were up to and some of children were interviewed by the journalist present. See the link below to see the interview:

https://youtu.be/7sc8LxftvUY   

The report will be in the w/c 17.11.25 edition but here is a transcript:

Newspaper Article

Fairfield Road’s Eco Warriors!  Students Plant Trees for a Greener Tameside

Braving driving rain, a crowd of determined young eco-champions from years 4, 5 & 6 gathered at Fairfield Road Primary School in Tameside for a mission with purpose to make a lasting difference to their local community and the natural world. On a day when most would have stayed indoors, Year 6 student Erin and her friends donned gloves and set off to plant trees and shrubs near the canal, their enthusiasm undimmed by the weather. “We’re planting trees and shrubs to help the wildlife thrive near the canal,” Erin explained, standing amidst her classmates. “Being an eco school means we make our school better for the environment. Not all schools look after nature, and that can have a big impact on wildlife. By planting trees and habitats, we’re making sure our area is preserved for the future. If we don’t, things could get really bad with pollution in the air and local waters.”

These student-led projects aren’t a one-off. Erin described a thriving school garden where pupils have grown potatoes for the winter, sweet tomatoes in the summer, and even enjoyed fruit from blackberry bushes, pear trees, and apple trees.

A School-Wide Philosophy

Mrs Foulds, Year 5 class teacher and ECO Lead at Fairfield Road, is proud of what her school has achieved over six years as an accredited ECO school. “Our philosophy is to get children to love the place where they live, so they look after it. When they have a say in making the area nicer, they’re less likely to vandalise it. Every student from nursery to Year 6 takes part in environmental projects, planting, harvesting, and even enjoying the food they’ve grown in our kitchens.”

The school’s approach includes:

• Weekly environmental activities like potato planting and harvesting
• A vibrant “forest school” where children build and play using materials from nature
• A strong emphasis on recycling and responsible waste management
• Regular litter picks, both around the school and along their adopted stretch of the Ashton Canal

Mrs Foulds reflected on the challenges: “We can clear up litter but by the next week it’s back again. It’s shocking how much rubbish people dump. This is why our message, especially from the children, is so important, dumping litter affects the future of everyone.”

Learning by Doing

During the tree planting event, students from Years 4, 5, and 6 took turns in the muddy canal bank, supported by experts from the Canal and River Trust. Ash, a pupil whose father is an ecologist, shared his excitement “It means a lot because me and my dad love helping the environment. We look after this stretch of canal, and it’s important to keep it free from rubbish. If waste gets into rivers and the canal, it can end up in the ocean, harming fish, which could end up on our plates.”

Fellow pupil James agreed, highlighting the school’s sustainable food initiatives “We grow potatoes, tomatoes, apples, pears, all sorts of healthy foods that we use in the school canteen.”

We were really proud of our OFSTED report and that inspectors recognised within personal development how our ECO work has such a positive effect on our children as citizens.

We have now been an ECO School for four years. Our Eco Council is a really important part of our school and we have worked extremely hard on our journey to becoming a Green Flag School. In 2020/21, we achieved our Bronze Award and Silver Award and then in August 2021 we achieved our very first Green Flag to become an ECO school. August 2022 saw us gain our second ECO flag. Last year we were thrilled to gain an ECO flag with Merit. In 2024, we gained another ECO Flag and were thrilled when we were awarded an ECO Green Flag with distinction - this is what Keep Britain Tidy had to say about us:

"Dear Mrs Foulds,

We are very pleased to tell you that you and your Eco-Committee at Fairfield Road Primary School have been successful in meeting the requirements for the Eco-Schools Green Flag Award.

We reviewed your application and noted the following:

It is evident that young people in your school are aware of environmental issues and passionate about protecting our planet! Thank you for sharing your meeting minutes with the Eco-Schools’ Team. They really helped to provide an insight into your Eco-Schools’ work, and the dynamics of your pupil-led Eco-Committee! Completing the Environmental Review allowed your Eco-Committee to recognise the positive changes that your school has already made and gain an appreciation of the future impacts that they can create of ideas for creating an impactful Action Plan. Your Environmental Review is packed with comments, and this is exactly what our team enjoys seeing. It’s clear that completing it provided your Eco-Committee with plenty of ideas for creating an impactful Action Plan. You chose to work on topics that mattered to you, and this is a sensible approach that will lead to increased engagement and bigger impacts. This approach places them at the heart of your Eco-Schools work and will lead to increased engagement. We enjoyed reading about your switch to paper straws and how you monitor plastic use within your school– this sounded fantastic! It is great to see how you incorporated environmental issues into all aspects of your school activities. Your Action Plan contains a diverse range of activities aimed at creating positive behaviours, making an immediate difference to your local environment, and expanding your Eco-Schools’ initiatives into your local community. We enjoyed reading about your range of activities within your curriculum! These examples clearly demonstrate that staff members in your school are willing to go above and beyond to include these important issues in pupil’s learning! Pass on a thank you to them from the Eco-Schools’ Team. Your Eco-Committee have used a wide variety of methods to inform their school community about their work, your assembly sounded fantastic! This shows they take pride in their achievements and are working hard to involve and educate all around them! We loved seeing your Eco-Board. It’s really visual and engaging and it’s great to see your Eco-Committee celebrated. Your greatest success is a brilliant achievement. Restoring your pond and keeping your stretch of the canal has been a huge success with a positive impact on your pupils! It’s clearly something that pupils will be proud of and leaves a great legacy to build upon! We love your collaborative approach to creating an Eco-Code, this approach has allowed young people to take ownership and create a final code that will be treasured by everyone at your school! It was also wonderful to read you had supplemented your environmental learning with a trip to the Zoo - this sounded brilliant! Thank you for your question suggestions for next year’s Environmental Review, they’re intelligent ideas that we will take into consideration when compiling next year’s review. Thank you so much for submitting such a terrific application. We have loved reading about your journey and are incredibly impressed by all you have achieved. We have no hesitation in awarding you an Eco-Schools Green Flag with Distinction, congratulations!"

As an eco school, we take our responsibilities really seriously. To find out more about our Eco work please explore our page, look at our photos and use the website links here!

- Autumn 1 and we began our ECO Crew work with the Year 6 children. They did an amazing job preparing the veg plots ready for spring planting. They also did an amazing job litter picking along the canal where we collected 3 full bags of dropped litter. Our amazing Year 6's additionally worked hard to clean and tidy the pond area throughout the term. Well done Year 6.  

- Autumn 2 saw Year 5 ECO Crews litter picking and pond tidying ready for winter. We collected lots of litter on our litter picking days from around the canal which is sad to see. We also cleared leaves from around the pond and used fishing nets to collect leaves from in the pond. We also did some weeding in the plant beds to keep our new pond area clean and tidy.

- Spring 1 and we continue with our litter picking. We have picked up so much litter from along the canal area and along Fairfield Road. It is a good job our children at Fairfield Road are committed to keeping their local area clean and tidy. January 24th to 26th, the school took part in the Great Big Birdwatch and as part of the activities Year 4 made birdfeeders to hang in our ECO garden and orchard. 

- Spring 2 and we have tidied up the vegetable beds ready for planting vegetables once more. We enriched the soil with compost and tidied up the catkins that had fallen from the willow trees.  We planted the seed potatoes we have chitted and members of 3 BD planted them today. They are Maris Piper potatoes and hopefully, we will have delicious potatoes for us to eat in the summer. We took part in The Great Big Spring Clean and were joined by Gemma from Jigsaw Housing and Sharon from Tameside Council. We walked along the canal and up through to Fairfield Road collecting litter. 

-Summer 1 - we tended the gardens and veg patches, we planted peas and cabbages too. We were kept busy watering the plants as the weather has been very dry. We also tidied the pond area and cleared the pond of shed willow leaves. We are worried by the lack of rain and how the water level of the pond has dropped. We hope our newts are ok. We have begun work on our wildflower meadow and preparing the area to plant plug plants. We have been in touch with Gemma from Jigsaw Housing and she has agreed to buy some perennials for our borders in the ECO garden to make them look more attractive.  Year 3 have now all been part of our weekly ECO Crew.

- Summer 2 and we will harvesting our potatoes in a few weeks. We have had the Bike Kitchen in this term repairing bikes of our children and community members. Not only does this stop bikes from going to landfill it also encourages people to ride their bikes - keeping healthy and reducing our carbon footprints. We are really excited because for the first time our pear tree has fruited - the pears look big and juicy and look like they will be ready to harvest soon. We also have lots of blackberries from our blackberry bushes in the orchard and there are lots of apples that will be ready to pick very soon. The ECO council were thrilled when Gemma fetched our plants for our ECO garden and we also received wildflower meadow plug plants to plant in what will be our wildflower meadow garden - watch this space next year - it will look beautiful. Year 2 have now had their turn to be part of the ECO Crew.  

OUR ECO GARDEN

This is our ECO garden. We have divided the space into 4 quadrants where we have a wildflower, butterfly and bee garden with an insect hotel and bird bath, a quiet/mindfulness garden, an orchard and a vegetable patch. We hope to grow our own fruit and vegetables, learn how to be more self-sustainable and acquire new life skills as well as trying to attract butterflies, bees, dragonflies and other wildlife into our school grounds.

LITTER PICKING ACTIVITIES

OUR POND

We have now finished the refurbishment of our pond in the forest school area. If you remember, the pond was vandalised a few years ago. The liner had been slashed and the water had drained away. Last year on Earth Day 2021 we set about restoring the pond with the help of Ash's dad, Tim. Tim laid a new liner and we refilled the pond with de-chlorinated water which took Ash, Tim and myself nearly a full day in May 2021. We were amazed after a few weeks to find it had been populated by newts who now have a lovely new habitat. The pond has now filled to the edges of the liner and Tim has kindly bought us some plants to put in our pond. We should be able to have a fantastic time now exploring and examining the flora and fauna that visit our pond from our viewing platform.   

ECO CALENDAR

Cut your Carbon November 2024

ECO MEETING MINUTES

ECO ASSEMBLIES

RSPB GREAT BIG BIRDWATCH

ECO AWARDS

ECO CODE