Step 4 Curriculum Links

• Environmental issues have been covered in at least three areas of your school or nursery’s curriculum.
• Evidence of environmental curriculum links is displayed on your Eco-Board.
• Optional for first Eco-Schools Green Flag: Your evidence is from a broad range of ages.

• Your three pieces of curriculum link evidence do not have to correspond with the topics you have chosen to work on in your Action Plan.
• The Eco-Schools Team understand that nurseries and some specialist settings have a bespoke curriculum, and environmental work linking to this curriculum is perfect.
• We recommend beginning to gather your Curriculum Links and completing this section of the Eco-Schools application form as early as October.

Eco-Schools Team Tip

Why not plan an Eco-Day or Week with all learning focused on environmental issues? This is a great, and celebratory, way to make sure all children are involved in eco-education. If you’re just beginning your Eco-Schools journey an Eco-Day or week also makes it easy to find all the evidence you need for this step in one go!

• Early Years Linking Topic Actions to Seven Areas of Learning and Development. A document containing an action for each of the ten Eco-Schools topics and a demonstration of how this action links to each of the Seven Areas of Learning Development (including book recommendations)!
• Early Years Curriculum Links Staffroom Handwritten. A document to place in the staffroom to make gathering Curriculum Link evidence easy.
• Early Years Gathering Curriculum Links Editable. A document to e-mail to staff members to make gathering Curriculum Link evidence easy.

Our setting doesn’t follow a curriculum, how do we work on this step?

The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage provides plenty of opportunities for environmental issues to be covered in activities and experiences. These issues may be covered through play, exploration, active learning or thinking critically. If you have organised any activities that help children learn about environmental issues then this is suitable evidence for your Green Flag application.

Our setting doesn’t produce formal written work, how can we gather evidence?

For early years settings evidence can include: crafts, drawings, mark making, photos, videos or any other pieces of evidence you may have gathered for a child’s learning journey.

Does our curriculum evidence have to be from the same topics we have worked on in our Action Plan?

No, it can be from any of our ten topics.

How many pieces of curriculum evidence do we need?

You need to gather three pieces of evidence, for your Eco-Schools Green Flag application.

Can all of our evidence be from the same class?

For your first Eco-Schools Green Flag, yes! For Eco-Schools Green Flag renewals, no, we would like to see evidence from different age groups. Why not try using one of the resources listed above to help you easily gather evidence from other year groups?

We have found our evidence what next?

You should display good examples of curriculum work on your Eco-Board you can do this by photocopying work or printing photos of children engaged in Eco-Schools learning. If one of your actions is to reduce paper usage these curriculum links can also be highlighted on your nursery website.