The aim of the Eco Council is to help the school develop as an Eco School.
Here is the Eco Council for 2016-17.
Here are the minutes of our latest meeting: Eco minutes 2.3.17
The Eco Council braved the winter weather to plant some bushes in the new story area.
Here is last year’s Eco Council.
Switch Off Fortnight
This week is the launch of National ‘Switch Off Fortnight.’ Mr French and the Eco Council gave a very informative talk in assembly to all the children about why it is important to switch off.
At Holly Park we are going to try our best to remember to switch off lights when we are not in rooms, switch off computers and projectors when we are not using them. The children will monitor this and remind us all. The Eco Council children have made posters to go around the school to remind us all to do it. Maybe you could have a go at home too!
Here are the minutes from our meetings:
And here is last year’s Eco Council.
Here are the minutes for this year’s meetings:
For the last Eco Council meeting of the school year we went to the allotment and dug up some potatoes and garlic. We gave the potatoes to Adam in the school kitchen to cook. And then Mr French brought us all some ice creams!
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Mr French treat the Eco Council to an end of term ice cream.
The Eco Council had a brilliant trip to London as a prize for winning a competition to build the best sculpture out of recycled materials. Here are their pictures.
The Eco Council went on a trip to the Barnet Countryside Centre where they went on a meadow walk to look at nature, searched for mini-beasts and looked at pond life.
Here are the minutes of the last Eco Council meeting: ECO Council Meeting Friday 2nd May
And here are the previous minutes:
Sculpture competition
The Eco Council (with a bit of help from their friends) collected masses of recyclable material to make a massive sculpture for a competition. They chose to make a snowman called Jeff and their hard work paid off because they won the competition!
Other member of the Eco Council are: Mrs Pelham (Deputy Head) ,Mr French (Teacher), Mr Reid (Site Manager), Mrs Pearson (Governor) and Mrs Quinton (Parent & Governor).
We are delighted to announce that in February 2013 we were awarded the Eco Schools Silver Award. This award was achieved by the hard work of both last year’s Eco Council and this year’s council.
To achieve the Silver Award, the council had to have regular Eco meetings involving staff members, pupils, a governor and a parent. The council completed an environmental review of the school and made an action plan from this.
The council then worked on several issues from the plan including an in-depth review of the school’s waste. Topics about the environment have also been covered across the curriculum nursery to Year 6.
Finally the Eco council created a whole school Eco code from ideas given by many children across the school. The new Eco code was presented in assembly and will be put up in every classroom . Our new Silver certificate will be displayed in the foyer and the Silver Award icon is already on the newsletter. Many thanks to everyone who helped us to achieve this award.
Latest news: The Eco Council has done an audit of all the bins in classrooms and is now doing a trial to see if it is possible NOT to use plastic bags in classroom and office bins. This would save around 1,000 plastic bags a year!
Making better use of our rain water
Holly Park won a bid to take part in a SUDs (Sustainable Drainage Systems) project which was completed in May 2013. The project saw a pond made in the allotment area with a riverbed cascade and an increase in the number of water butts for use in the allotment.
A swaile has also been created on the grass area in the junior playground at the bottom of the slope which will help to soak up excess water.
This is a very exciting project as we desperately need more water for our allotment area and having a pond on site will provide wonderful opportunities for studying wild life.
You can read more about Suds here: Holly Park World Water Day and Draft Design 2013
Year four planted the swaile with hundreds of plants which can withstand a lot of water or drought. Here they planting the swaile.
You can see more pictures of planting on our allotment page.
The first Eco Council trip
For the first time the Eco Council went on a trip to the Barnet Countryside Centre where they learnt about the Countryside Code and the damage litter can cause. They also went on a habitat walk and created their own memory sticks (more about that later).
But the highlight of the trip was pond dipping where they saw newts, mini beasts and even a kind of leech. Soon we will be able to do this in our very own pond.
This is what some of the children thought about the trip:
“I like pond dipping because I like looking at all the different creatures.” Dolcie, Year 4.
“We got to learn about nature and food chains and what would happen to the human race without nature.” Mwenda, Year 6.
“We have learnt about all sorts of creatures and animals.” Tom Year 3.
“If we leave stuff on the floor it could harm animals and they could die.” Elias, Year 5.
“I liked the pond dipping because I liked seeing what kind of creatures lived there.” Lumini, Year 1.
“I liked using the map because it was quite mysterious where we had to go,” Borna, Year 5.
Here are some pictures of the pond dipping.
You can see more pictures of the day on our trips page.
Here’s something to try at home – making your own memory stick!
The Eco Council made memory sticks on their trip – but not ones to put in the computer! It’s something easy to do at home – get a bookmark size piece of card and attach a long strip of double-sided sticky tape. Then stick on all the interesting things you can find in the parks or woods. We used leaves from herbs and scented plants, feathers, pine needles and interesting grasses.
Here are two of our Eco Council members showing us how:
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After lunch at the Barnet Countryside Centre we took part in the Picnic Lunch Challenge where we examined the waste left after our lunch and what could be recycled. The non-recyclable waste was weighed at 100g. One person had left 60g of crusts! But one pupil, Mittal from Year 1, had no waste at all because he had brought his lunch in a reusable container and had eaten it all!
Holly Park Primary School 