The Unicorn School in Abingdon has been accredited with Eco-Schools’ Bronze award.
The Eco-Schools programme is the largest sustainable schools’ programme in the world and in the UK is being run by Keep Britain Tidy. The programme requires schools to work on 9 environmental and sustainable topics:-transport, waste, water, litter, school grounds, healthy living, energy, biodiversity and global perspective.
Having initially registered online, the first job Mike Pickett, the teacher at the Unicorn over-seeing the project, had to do was to form an ‘Eco-Schools action team’; this comprised staff and pupils from the school who wanted to help make a difference.
His team’s first job was to conduct an environmental review and to develop an action plan; from there moving on to start work towards their Bronze Award by focusing on the actions of one of the topics, choosing ‘global perspective’.
Mike says “We decided to focus on a school in Tanzania who were in desperate need of some assistance. Friends had been raising money towards the building of a school for the Maasai villages around Loliando. One classroom is complete, two staff teach about 60 children each day, and a kitchen provides food from The World Health Organisation. Disposable cameras given to some of the school children allowed all our pupils to understand a little more about Maasai life and their schooling; we are learning much from them that we can apply to our own lives. Now we are in the process of raising money to support different projects there and this was a great way to look at the ‘global perspective’ topic for our Bronze Award.”
More information can be found at www.eco-schools.org.uk; in the meantime the Unicorn Action Team are making plans to win their silver award, the next step on the way to an ultimate ‘Green Flag’!
Copy supplied by The Unicorn School
