Eco-Schools at Central Nursery School

Central Nursery School has a long history of learning about the environment and our outdoor areas are truly special. The school has a well-established Sensory Garden with vegetable patches, an on-site Woodland Garden, a wildlife pond and large grassy play areas surrounded by mature trees, all providing ideal habitats for a range of animals, birds and insects.

Our children spend precious time outdoors in this safe and exciting environment. They learn real gardening skills, grow their own food, study bugs, frogs, birds and much more. They go on adventures and engage in natural activities in our outdoor classrooms. The outdoor areas are inspiring in all seasons and provide wonderfully varied and rich learning experiences for everyone.

The children and staff at Central Nursery School wanted to learn more about how to protect our world and decided to work towards the Eco-Schools Green Flag award. This was first achieved in July 2020, and has been renewed each year since.  We have done this by caring for our garden, growing wild flowers, creating homes for bugs, recycling our rubbish, composting our food waste, remembering to turn off taps, reducing the amount of plastic we use, and lots more....

What is Eco-Schools?

Eco-Schools is a global programme engaging millions of children across 64 different countries, making it the largest environmental schools programme in the world. It raises environmental awareness, improves the school environment and creates financial savings for schools. It also engages the wider local community and makes links to the curriculum.

You can find more information about Eco-Schools at https://www.eco-schools.org.uk/

Our Eco-Committee

We have an Eco-Committee consisting of children, parents and staff that meets every half term. We plan how to improve the nursery environment and develop children's awareness and understanding of environmental issues. 

The children have completed an Environmental Review of the nursery which covers all of the Eco-Schools 10 topics: energy, litter, waste/recycling, water, transport, healthy living, bio-diversity, school grounds, global citizenship and marine. This enabled the Eco-Committee to develop an action plan and work towards achieving its goals.

We decided to work on the following aspects of Eco-Schools:

Eco-School at home

Parents are encouraged to help by continuing Eco-Schools activities at home. We make suggestions for parents on our Tapestry app, through Facebook and in newsletters. Our suggestions have included:

• Recycling activities
• Reducing plastic use
• Feeding the birds
• Making bug homes
• Learning the Eco code song with their children