Over the past ten years, we have been committed to teaching sustainability and environmental awareness. In 2007 the school joined the Eco Schools program, and in 2016 we achieved our fourth green flag. This is all down to the tremendous work of our Eco Warriors. They tirelessly ‘spy’ on each class to check and turn off taps, lights, interactive whiteboards and to even check doors and windows. They also litter pick daily. With the support of Mrs Hunter-Lacey, they also fund raise for our school gardens and are always thinking of ways to support our global environment with special events such as the Water Aid pipeline challenge or encouraging everyone to follow the frog to support rain forests sustainability with their own, child led, assemblies.
In 2008 we had a large wind turbine installed. This was paid for with money raised through fundraising and grants. In the same year we won an Ashden Award for our work on sustainability and used the prize money to build a beautiful outdoor classroom made from willow. We were also lucky enough to win the National Energy Efficiency Awards in 2008. We have continued to develop relationships with organisations such as The Living Rain Forest and other schools, as a mentor and flagship school.
This week (November 2020) has seen the launch of WOW, our walk to school scheme. It has been great to hear about all the children walking, scooting or riding into school for at least 10minutes of their journey.
To help promote WOW a competition was launched to design a poster. This poster had to tell us, ‘Why should we walk to school?” The three winners are: Chloe and George, Isis and Summer. You can see their winning designs below and around the school soon.
November saw the launch of the WOW initiative at Sandhills school. Every day the children recorded how they travelled to school. There has been a real buzz around how everyone has travelled to school and consequently we have seen an increase of children wanting to be more environmentally friendly about their travel into school. Many children, who may live further away, have been asking their parents to park away from the school so that they could walk the final 10minutes and say they travelled via the ‘park and stride’.
Overall, the Sandhills children have earnt 121 badges and their names have been celebrated in the school newsletter. Also, there was a trophy to be won by the class who had the most amount of children travelling to school in an environmentally friendly way. For November, we are pleased to say 1P have won the trophy with 93% children travelling in an environmentally friendly way.
We wonder which class will win it for December?
Even into the colder months of the year, Sandhills continued to travel to school in an environmentally friendly way. December saw a rise in children choosing to walk, ride, scoot or park & ride into school. Therefore, congratulations to everyone who has taken part and to all our badge winners! Overall, the Sandhills children have earnt 163 badges. The trophy (for the highest number of children travelling to school in an environmentally friendly way) has gone to 2S, with 93% of the children choosing to travel in an environmentally friendly way. Which class will win for March…..?
As the weather begins to warm up it has been great to see the children travel to school in an environmentally friendly way. Many children walk, scoot or cycle to school and each time they do, they earn a point towards the WOW badge.
Did you know you can earn a point towards your WOW badge by doing park and stride? Why not park at the park & ride and walk to school? It is free to park in the park & ride for 1hour.
Well done to all those children who have earnt their April WOW badge (see names in the attached document). Let’s see who can earn a WOW badge for May.
What a rainy month May was! But that did not deter the children at Sandhills from travelling to school in an Eco friendly way. An amazing 138 WOW badges were earnt for the month of May. The badge for May captures the beautiful Northern Lights. I can not wait to see the children wearing them proudly on their school jumpers.
Each month there is a class who wins the WOW trophy and for May it is 2S with an astonishing 99% of the class travelling to school in an eco-friendly way. I wonder who will win in June?
June was a much nicer month for travelling to school in an Eco friendly way. An amazing 177 WOW badges were earnt for the month of June, 40 more badges than in May. I can not wait to see the children wearing the badges proudly on their school jumpers.
Each month there is a class who wins the WOW trophy and for June it is 2S with an astonishing 100% of the class travelling to school in an eco-friendly way. I wonder who will win in July?
