Primary school pupils awarded coveted Eco-Schools Green Flag
Primary school pupils in Staffordshire have celebrated raising their new Eco-Schools Green Flag at the entrance of their school site.
The Green Flag, an international accreditation, recognises Landywood Primary School's work in becoming more environmentally friendly and raising eco-awareness in pupils.
Eco-Schools is an international education programme that prompts young people to explore sustainability and climate change and take action, benefitting their school and the environment.
To achieve the award, Landywood invited children from across the school to join a ten-strong Eco-Committee.
The Eco-Committee, with children ranging from 5 to 11 years, collaborated to conduct an environmental review assessing how eco-friendly their school was, covering everything from recycling practices, to energy usage, and how environmental themes are covered in classrooms.
The Eco-Committee first tackled the school canteen, weighing food waste each day and then taking action to help minimise this.
Alongside food waste, they implemented a programme to recycle food packaging.
Pupil and Eco-Award Committee member, Matthew Williams, 7 said: "I like being on the Eco-Committee and being able to make a difference to my school and the Earth.
"It is fun having meetings and working on the eco projects and I am very proud that we have been awarded the Green Flag."
Headteacher, Andrew Clewer, added: "It’s more important than ever that our children understand the environmental impacts of everyday life and that they are informed and empowered to be able to make positive changes to reduce these.
"As a school, Landywood is very proud to have been awarded the Eco-Schools Green Flag, which is testament to the hard work and dedication of our pupils and staff.
"Not only has this programme reduced our environmental impact, it has also had a positive impact on our costs.
"It is really important to us to have the flag displayed in a prominent place on our grounds to help remind our children how far we have come on our eco-journey and inspire them to continue to improve our environmental credentials."
