Eco-Schools is part of Keep Britain Tidy

Step 6 Monitoring and Evaluation

Measuring the impact of the projects in your Action Plan

View the full Green Flag criteria, resources and examples below

Monitoring and Evaluation Criteria

In order to achieve the international Green Flag award a school or nursery must meet the following criteria, which has been created for Early Years settings

  • Your Eco-Committee monitors the effectiveness of their Eco-Schools topic actions with adult support.
  • Older children on the Eco-Committee feedback their monitoring and evaluation findings to all children, staff and parent/guardians in the nursery.
  • Eco-Schools activities are displayed on your Eco-Board for example photographs of your chosen actions (Including before and after photographs).
  • Children have discussed whether their Action Plan was successful and if not how they could make it more successful.
  • OPTIONAL FOR FIRST GREEN FLAG: Some monitoring and evaluation data has been used in your school or nursery’s curriculum, for example counting, tally charts or maths activities.

Eco-Schools Team Tips

Early years monitoring can be nice and simple – if you have created a bug hotel, why not go on a bug hunt and count the bugs you find using bug identification sheets? If you have created a forest school area, before and after photos are great (just don’t forget to take the before photo)!

Monitoring and Evaluation FAQs

Everything you need to know about Monitoring and Evaluation

How can we include Monitoring and Evaluation in our early years curriculum?

Simple, use the basic maths skills that are taught in Early Years settings for example if you decided to grow carrots children could count the number of carrots you have grown.

One of our actions wasn’t successful, what should we do?

At Eco-Schools we know that not every action will be a success, but we still advise that you use this as evidence towards your Green Flag application. Our Green Flag Assessors may only ask what you would do differently in the future?

One of our actions isn’t complete what should we do?

Some actions can take a long time to complete (e.g. planting tree saplings to create a forest school area). As long as you have started an action and can provide evidence of this, then please do not hesitate to apply for your Green Flag award.

What evidence do we need for Step 6: Monitoring and Evaluation?

During the final stages of your Green Flag application you will be asked to briefly explain how you have monitored the effectiveness of your topic actions. You will also be asked to provide a clear photograph of your Eco-Board, on which we would expect to see evidence of Monitoring and Evaluation such as: before and after photographs and simple graphs, chats and maths activities.

The Cooperative Childcare Carterton, Oxfordshire

The minutes taken by the Eco-Committee at Carterton are absolutely fabulous - a perfect record of their Eco-Schools discussion... but we also love how committee members young and old have monitored the eco-projects in their Action Plan! Children built a bug hotel to encourage more wildlife into their garden using discarded pallets and plants they decided insects would like, they then completed frequent insect hunts to see if their hotel was attracting visitors. They also made bird feeders from seeds, coconut oil and rolled cardboard and now complete regular birdwatches. Staff also monitor their young environmentalists by listening out for environmental discussion relating to issues taught!

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