Warwickshire News Mine

Warwickshire County Council has been working with many of the county’s schools for over two years to help them achieve their bronze and silver Eco Schools awards.

This year, however, an incredible 11 schools have managed to gain the highest accolade possible under the scheme – the Green Flag award.

The 11 schools are:
Bilton Junior School, Rugby
Birchwood Primary School, Tamworth
Bishops Itchington Primary, Southam
Emscote Infants School, Warwick
Harbury Primary, Stratford on Avon
High Meadow Infant School, Coleshill
Ilmington Primary School, Shipston on Stour
Myton College, Warwick
Newdigate Primary and Nursery, Bedworth
Rugby High School, Rugby
Sydenham Primary, Leamington Spa

The other two schools to have the Green Flag are Rugby High School for Girls, which has three Green Flags and is about to apply for permanent status, and the other is St Mary and St Benedict Primary School in Coventry, which gained Green Flag by themselves, and although not a Warwickshire School joined our scheme because there wasn’t one in their area.

The achievement for the 11 new schools in gaining Green Flag comes after several years of hard work involving the students, teachers, governors and community.

The success of Eco Schools depends very much on students being involved in running the programme.

In many cases they have their own job titles such as meteorologist, project officer and finance officer.

The schools have various projects underway, including water conservation, organic gardens and even the installation of a remote bird box camera system in the school grounds at Bilton to monitor different species.

Cllr Martin Heatley, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for the Environment, said:  “By achieving Green Flag it shows that all these schools have achieved an extremely high standard in protecting the environment. This demonstrates the schools are involved in saving important resources such as energy and water.

“It also demonstrates significant achievement in these areas which will help to combat Climate Change and save our valuable water resources. I can’t stress enough, the importance of reducing the amount of energy we use and avoiding unnecessary wastage in this area, as all too often we use energy and water as though they are going out of fashion.

“We sometimes need our children to remind us to stop and think before leaving the lights on, or the tap running. We should now all take a lead from these Green Flag schools and the many other Eco Schools in Warwickshire, and follow their good practice by trying to reduce our own energy and water use. After all we should be leading by example.”

For more information on Eco Schools contact Barbara Golding barbaragolding@warwickshire.gov.uk or visit http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/ecoschools or http://www.eco-schools.org.uk

Link to WCC