Eco-Warrior

At Bywell Junior School, we encourage all children to develop an awareness of environmental topics in the classroom that can impact our world. We provide children with an opportunity to take leadership of environmental issues in our school and local community. The incorporation of the Eco Warriors allows pupils to work towards improving both the environment in both school and the local community while at the same time having a positive impact on the lives of pupils, their families and school staff.

As a way to ensure that sustainability is incorporated throughout the curriculum, we set a goal to achieve and sustain the ‘Green Flag’ award. To achieve Green Flag success, it is essential for our pupils and Eco Warriors to complete the Eco School seven steps framework. The Eco Schools seven steps is a series of measures to help schools maximise the success of their Eco Schools ambitions. To become a successful Eco School, the first step is to elect an effective Eco Committee (Eco Warriors). The active involvement of staff and pupils is vital in the programme. At Bywell we elect three representatives from Years 3 – 6 they then complete an ‘Eco Warrior’ application form that is returned to our School Eco Coordinator.

The Eco Warriors meet at least every half term to discuss current issues around the 10 elements of the Eco School and how they are addressed in school. The 10 elements that our school is addressing are:

• Energy
• Water
• Waste
• Litter
• Global Perspectives
• Healthy Living
• School Grounds
• Biodiversity
• Transport
• Marine

We encourage our pupils to take active leadership in changes that they want to make in our school. We complete an environmental review to assess and evaluate our schools sustainability. Our environmental review allows our pupils to generate an idea of what our school needs to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly.  After completing our environmental review, our Eco Warriors create an action plan which is used to identify priority elements that need to be developed within our school. We use this action plan to generate targets that can be tackled throughout the school year. To ensure that sustainability is truly integrated into our curriculum, it is imperative that environmental issues are taught throughout our curriculum.

• To build an Eco-warrior team with representatives from each year group to feedback to their classes.
• To meet with the Eco- warrior team at least once every term to discuss our next steps and work towards the green flag award.
• To take part in Eco competitions.
• To continue to work towards meeting the green flag award by focusing on the main 10 elements.

• The eco-warriors need to hold a meeting termly with the eco-warriors to work towards the green flag award.
• The Eco- warriors are now setting the targets for what they would like to accomplish in the following year.
• The children have expressed their interest in completing litter pick around the school community.
• They have enjoyed meeting to discuss the ‘Ten topics’ based around the green flag award

As a new lead for this subject I have booked myself onto the Eco-Schools Online Training: Session 1 on Tuesday 7^th November. From this training, I hope to have gained a greater understanding of the role and impact of Eco Warriors within our school and more on the steps to achieving the Green Flag award. I will then create our steps for action for the academic year 2023/24.

• There are 7 steps involved in achieving the Green Flag Award. Step 1: Create an Eco Committee – Application forms will be disturbed to each class over the Christmas holidays for the children to nominate themselves as the Eco Warrior lead for their class. An Eco Warrior for each class will be decided upon by each class teacher. Application forms and the chosen Eco Warrior will have their photo displayed on the display board.
• In the new year the Eco Committee will meet and create an Environmental review of school. (Step 2)