Eco Action Team

Our Eco Warriors!

At Pinewood, we want our children to be responsible, respectful and active citizens who contribute to protecting and sustaining our wonderful world. We do this in many ways such as sponsoring an endangered animal in every class, supporting spana working donkeys, whole school approaches to litter picking, work with the RSPB, work on fair trade...the list goes on!

As a result, children can articulate how important it is to take care of the world and our endangered species. We have the Gold Eco award and receive gold every year. We are true eco warriors and our amazing eco team lead this!

25th September  2024

Eco Warrior Meeting

Agenda: Today we met as a team and  we walked around school at lunchtime to see which classes had remembered to turn off their lights. We turned off any lights that were not being used. We now have the responsibility of reminding our peers and teachers to turn off the lights when we leave the room. We know it is important to save energy.

Next Steps: Making new Eco Code posters adding a fourth R: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repair

10th September 2024

Eco Warrior Meeting

Agenda: At the beginning of term we were given our new roles as the Eco team. This was done democratically through a class vote. The Eco Warriors introduced themselves to each other and spoke about why they wanted to represent their class. Read what some of our Eco Warriors said: “I want to look after my world” “I want to protect the planet” "Our planet is important"  "We only have one planet". We celebrated our new roles and we were awarded a special Eco Warrior badge in our Star Assembly. We will wear our badges with pride.

June 2024

Creating and planting our very own Pumpkin Patch!

During our Forest School session our Foundation Eco Warriors guided the children on how to turn the soil over in order for us to create our very own Pumpkin Patch. Next we planted a pumpkin plant which was given to us by a grandparent. We are so excited to take care of our plant and we are really hoping to harvest some pumpkins in the Autumn Term. Watch this space.

May 2024

Look what we found in our Forest School Area......our very own Caterpillars!

We were so excited to discover such treasure. We are going to watch them carefully over the next few weeks to see what happens!

April 2024

Biodiversity

Forest School is now being developed by Miss Cox and the Eco Team have had an input. We came up with the idea of making our very own Bug Hotel in our Forest School area to attract minibeasts and insects. We are so proud of our Bug Hotel and we have had many visitors checking in!

Big Spring Clean up 2024

We then took part in the Big Spring Clean  2024 and you may have seen our pictures on Facebook.

We worked with Mrs Daisley and Gedling Borough Council to collect litter from not only our Pinewood environment but the local surrounding environment too!

Year 2 then took part in the Big Spring Clean too! With the support of some very kind Year 2 parents,

we cleaned up the streets surrounding our school and managed to fil five bin bags of litter and junk! Thank you for your support in making our environment such a better place to be! We are so proud of this achievement.

January 2024!

Biodiversity

Big School Bird Watch January 22nd-Feb 2nd 2024

Wow - what a busy, busy time we have had! The Eco-Warriors have been SO busy! 

We started the year off with a bang with the Big Bird Watch! So many of you returned your forms with the birds which had been spotted around the environment and in your gardens! During our Forest School sessions in F2 we also took part in the Big Bird Watch. Well done to all the children for sitting so quietly and observing the birds in our Pinewood environment.

December 

Today we counted up the score and we now know that the three areas that we are working on are: 

• Marine
• Transport
• Waste. 

We can't wait to pick a project for each area! We also put up our new signs for our recycling bins, light switches and compost bins!

November 2023

Today we recapped our environmental review and answered some of the trickier questions that we didn't know the answer to! We asked the kitchen staff and Mr AJ to help us! 

Next time we will be counting up the score to work out which areas we need to focus on.

September 2023 -  

Today we met for the first time and what a fantastic group we are! We snuck into the nature area and took it in turns to tell the group why we wanted to be Eco Warriors. We then gave out the special Eco badges and welcomed each member into our team. We are so excited to help make our school even more environmentally friendly. 

October 2023 - 

Today we worked as a team to answer the Environmental Review. We answered a range of questions to see how eco friendly our school is. There were a few questions that we were not sure (Are there any Fairtrade products in the kitchen?) so we are going to be eco detectives and find out next week!

Congratulations to our Eco Warriors 2022-2023!

Our hard work paid off and we have received the prestigious Green Flag award! The Eco-Schools team were very impressed with our application. They loved how we worked as a team and cared so passionately about our planet. They really liked our Eco events and how we love growing vegetables.

Next year we are going to aim for the bonus award too! 

September 2022

Agenda: Today we were given our new roles as the eco team. This was done democratically through a class vote. Our roles were then explained to us. 

Impact: We are clear on our roles and we know what to expect in the year ahead.

October 2022

Agenda: We looked at the environmental review today. We got 3/3 for biodiversity, waste, water and healthy living. We scored 2/3 for school grounds, transport and global citizenship. We scored the lowest in relation to energy, litter and marine, scoring on 1/3. 

Impact: To have a litter pick in school and report back to our classes on the importance of putting litter in the bin.  

November/December 2022 

Agenda: Today we talked about the impact on the environment of dropping litter. We did a litter pick around school and found gloves, straw wrappers and fruit peel. 

Impact: When we went back to our classes, we spoke to our peers about why it is so important to put litter in the bin.

January 2023

Agenda: Today we looked at some of the resources that we use in school and how eco friendly they are.

Impact:  We found out that glitter is not good for the environment (this was part of our environmental review) and we are going to look into finding eco friendly glitter instead. 

January 2023

Agenda: Today we learnt how to chit potatoes. We put the seed potatoes in egg boxes and made sure the 'rose end' was facing upwards (the end with the most eyes to form sprouts or shoots). We then took each box back to the classroom and explained what we had done to the rest of our class. We then put them in a light dry place. When they are ready, we will plant them in our vegetable boxes. 

Impact: We know that we can grow our own food and know how to chit potatoes.

February 2023

Agenda: Today we collected all of the Big Bird Watch tally charts and counted up how many birds we spotted. We then passed this information onto Mr AJ who put it in our weekly newsletter. Every child who took part received a special certificate and sticker. 

March: 

Agenda: Today we discussed how we can save plastic in our school. We looked at our school laminator and decided that it can be useful if we re-use the resource. Therefore instead of banning it we have decided that we can only "Use it if we re-use it!". We decorated the laminator with this slogan and recycling pictures to help remind the staff. 

April: 

Agenda: Today we spoke to Mr AJ about what the school is saving electricity. We have had new lights which are more much eco friendly. We would also like a new boiler but they are very expensive. After our chat with Mr AJ we went on a light hunt and spotted any classrooms that have had their lights / whiteboards on. We then told whoever has left them on to turn them off! We will be doing this again next week. 

May: 

Today we discussed Environment Day. We talked about what we would like to do to help our planet. We then thought that this would be a great time to encourage people to walk to school. We made some stickers which we will give out during Environment day. 

June/ July: 

Today we looked through our action plan and targets so far and discussed what we had done well and what we could work on. Mrs Parker is going to now send all the information to Eco-Schools and hopefully we will receive the Eco Green Flag award. 

Our Eco Events 2022/2023

Eco Warriors 21/22

A huge big thank you to our wonderful eco warriors for your fantastic efforts this year - I am glad our planet is in your hands. Love Ms Otter xxx

We are an Eco school, to help us achieve and maintain this status we take part in many fun activities, both in school and in the local environment. Caring for the environment is very much a part of our curriculum. Our aim is to reduce, reuse and recycle whatever and whenever we can. We have won the gold and silver awards from Arnold in bloom in the past years. Our children are exposed to growing plants and food whilst learning about why it is important to care for our surroundings.

We were the first Infant school in Nottinghamshire to be awarded the prestigious international Green Flag award.

In June 2020 we were awarded the prestigious Green Flag for the 7th time! Our assessor was really impressed by our efforts towards making our school an Eco school.

"The school continues to show outstanding commitment by everyone to creating a special place where there are outstanding opportunities to investigate, appreciate and understand the environment through active learning. The further extension of the outdoor opportunities for learning are exceptional, especially the many and various areas for gardening and the quality of the outdoor recources recently made by auxiliary staff. Displays of topics and class work are outstanding. There is clearly excellent liaison between all staff who work in the school to create an exceptional environment. Well done - wonderful work by everyone!"

Pond Life

The children in the Foundation Stage and Key Stage One have been learning about frogs and newts. 

Big Garden Birdwatch 2022

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