Case study detail
The transport team - pupils on the Echline Eco Committee
Scottish Eco-School - Echline Primary School
Contributed by:
Jo Colwell
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An Eco-primary school in Scotland involved in waste minimisation, environmental education streams and wider community engagement.
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Overview
Echline Primary is a large, suburban primary school with 322 pupils located on the outskirts of South Queensferry, near Edinburgh. The school achieved a first Eco Schools Green Flag Award in June 2004. The school’s extensive grounds have been developed to provide a range of additional resources for the school for teaching and learning, play, physical exercise and to encourage wildlife.
Programme Implementation
Echline is an excellent example of an Eco School – the whole school and wider community are involved. All seven eco-topics are covered by individual class groups, from primary 2 to 7, each one focusing on a particular topic. For example, primary 2 is responsible for leading on health and well-being and primary 7 on energy. A depute headteacher and 12 class teachers sit on the school’s eco committee, along with 15 pupil members, the janitor and a community member. Pupils are elected onto the committee by their peers.
Eco Schools work is evident in displays throughout the school, in curriculum planning and right across year groups. In particular, the work that the school has done linking their Eco Schools work with Enterprise is exemplary. The school is also very actively looking at waste minimisation, with recycling of paper, ink cartridges, mobile ‘phones, cardboard and cans taking place indoors and composting outdoors. Reduce and reuse messages are also evident throughout the school.
Energy is also another area that the school is actively engaged with, recording energy use and encouraging all to think about reducing the amounts used. Renewable energy sources are also being investigated.
Pupils are also encouraged to think about their health and well-being in terms of diet and exercise and about how they can travel to and from school in a more sustainable way.
Benefits of Involvement
The benefits to the school from involvement in the Eco Schools programme are numerous:
• Financial in terms of energy saving and less paper being used
• The ethos in the school has improved with all pupils and staff working closely together, an enhanced working environment, sense of pride in achievements, increased awareness of citizenship and improved links with the wider community.
• Curricular benefits in terms of maths (meaningful measurements, graphs, costs); language (oral, written, ICT, telephone manner, minutes); expressive arts (recycle fashion show, posters, song, dance, exercise); environmental studies (wildlife, planting, energy, recycling); health (diet, exercise, road safety); enterprise (focus for whole range of challenges)
• Citizenship (decision making, rules, responsibility, teamwork)
Key features
education
energy
waste initiatives
water
Key data
Project Team:
Cost:
Local Authority:
Links
Primary School Home Page
Eco Schools Scotland Home Page
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