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. 

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