Category: Sustainability Group

ECO Rep meeting Thursday 11th February
Welcome – Apologies – Rian & Brodie P6
What has happened since our last meeting?
Composting has been very successful. ECO reps should feel free to come to collect new bags each Thursday.
P3A have received a recycling box for their milk cartons.
Annie and Lola have produced windchimes for the garden. Harry and Sam have produced a plan for a bug hotel as have Lola and Erin.
Freya, Annie, Lola and Sam will produce signs for recycling bins.

Litter issues
Litter rota to run lunchtime Mon-Thurs and breaktime Friday. P7 Monday 1pm, P6 Tuesday 1pm, P5 Wednesday 1pm, P4 Thursday 1pm and P3 10.45am.
P1’s have been taking out litter pickers and playing with them.
ECO Action plan
Action plan focuses on litter, waste minimisation, sustaining our World and School grounds.
Recycling issues?
Signs still to be made by ECO reps for bins to help remind pupils. Milk cartons are being emptied into ragbag container. Children will not be allowed to take food and drink out of the dinner hall.
AOCB
School dinners – Annie, Abi and Martha all feel people are wasting lunches to get out of the dinner hall quickly to be with friends.
Bins – Charlie feels that children are knocking over bins and making a mess during playtimes.
Planting – Eliza and Kirsty felt the plant competition was great last year. They didn’t, however, get a chance to plant bulbs due to the space available and the layout chosen by the class teachers. Could everyone get a chance to plant something this year? Lauren mentioned that P1 and 2 were stamping in the planters and destroying some of the plants last year.
Wasting Water – Some children are using the tap in the playground outside the servery window and wasting water. Others are filling crisp packets with water and throwing them around outside.
Tidy playground competition – Eco reps thought it would be a good idea to have a tidy playground competition to encourage classes to take greater care with litter outside.

Next meeting March 2016

ECO Rep meeting Thursday 3rd December
Welcome – Apologies – Harry, Kacper, Natasha,
ECO week was it a success?
Bertie – Paperless Wednesday was good we did no maths in jotters.
Sam – A lot of people were putting rubbish in the bins
Annie – There was very little rubbish during ECO week
Erinn – People were trying to finish their lunch during ECO week
Brodie – There was a big drop in litter during ECO week
Eliza – Paperless day convinced people to use recycled materials.
Next Steps for ECO week
Brodie – No compost bins to empty caddies in to.
Eliza – Paper recycling bin overfilled and unable to take anymore paper.
Erinn – Paperless day was OK but some teachers used paper.
What has the classes been doing this term with an ECO focus?
P2’s made bird feeders using harvested sunflower seeds
P3’s designed an ECO friendly bedroom and a minibeast survey in the garden.
P4’s designed an ECO friendly house
P5’s made God Eyes using recycled materials
P6’s
P7’s made Anderson shelters as part of the WW2 topic using recycled cardboard.
Most classes used ECO pledges and we held a whole class ECO code competition.
Are there litter issues to pick up on?
We need a litter picking rota. Mon-Wed classes take turns to litter pick after lunch. Thursday ECO group litter pick after composting their class food waste.
Do we need new bins in class to encourage recycling and composting?
P3A require a bin for milk cartons. They are presently only recycling paper.
Are classes composting?
Classes require new composting caddies to encourage them to compost weekly. Mr Burgess will contact the council regarding new caddies.
AOCB
We should have a no electricity day to help save power. We could also have an outdoor learning day during term 3.
We should use an energy meter to measure usage within the school.
Meeting was closed and the next meeting was scheduled for January.

ECO Rep meeting Thursday 14th January
Welcome – Apologies – Rian
What has happened since our last meeting?
Classes have begun to compost their waste food weekly. Action plan has been established for 4 areas of development. These have been shared with ECO team and will shared with classes.
Environmental Review check List
Environmental review check list has been shared with all Eco members. Actions points were taken directly from this review.
ECO Action plan
Action plan focuses on litter, waste minimisation, sustaining our World and School grounds.
Litter issues
Litter rota to be established by next meeting. Brodie feels children have ignored requests by him to put rubbish in the bin. Other children knock bins over and take rubbish out of them.
Recycling issues?
Cardboard and milk cartons are being emptied into the wrong bins. Sign s to be made by ECO reps for bins to help remind pupils. P3A require a milk carton box for recycling.
Are classes composting?
Composting will be reviewed at the next meeting. Most classes are composting using compostable bags and food caddies.
AOCB
Natasha wondered if children could be given smaller portions at school dinners, there is a lot of waste food at lunches.
ECO reps were asked to make a sign for recycling bins, design a bug hotel for the garden or an item for the sensory garden area for next meeting. 4 sensory designs will be presented, 6 bug hotels will be designed and 7 signs for recycling will be made.

Next meeting Thursday 11th February

St John’s ECO group would like to say thank you to Changeworks, one of Scotland’s largest environmental charities, for a supply of new food waste caddies for classes and two new compost bins for the garden.

As an ECO school we aim to be composting food waste from classes weekly with support from ECO reps in P3-7.

We hope that by creating a culture of composting and reycling in St John’s we can encourage children to carry this forward at home and in their local communities.