Gardening is used in Windermere Day Nursery to build confidence and self-esteem, whilst teaching their young children about the importance of a healthy lifestyle. Following discussion on their favourite foods and researching the care and resources needed for a variety of plants, the Eco-Committee at Windermere (consisting of six pre-schoolers) decided they wanted to grow: strawberries, carrots, beans, corn, courgettes, potatoes and herbs. Allowing the children to decide what they want to grow not only fits in with the pupil-led nature of the Eco-Schools programme, it also leads to increased engagement and encourages children to take additional responsibility to nurture and harvest their plants. Children have taken great pride in seeing their crops used in sensory tasting activities and as snacks or part of healthy meals. They even collect and compost any leftovers to ensure they have quality compost to keep their plants healthy!

Nursery Children at Penshurst Primary enjoy nothing more than growing their own vegetables. For their latest potato project, they began by chitting potatoes, which they then planted. Next they watched and waited for shoots to grow, before harvesting their produce. Finally, they used their potatoes to cook and eat a mashed potato feast!

The Eco-Committee and School Nutrition Action Group at Laurance Haines have been reducing food waste and encouraging healthy eating by running a ‘tuck shop’ to redistribute the fruit and vegetable snacks that Key Stage One and Early Years children don’t consume to Key Stage Two children each afternoon. This counts towards the Healthy Living and Waste Eco-Schools topics!

Pupils at Penshurst Primary School have participated in the Eco-Schools Project Mindfulness Minutes… You can find out more about the project by clicking Eco-Projects in the menu bar above.
All pupils participated ranging from nursery to year 6 and they completed a variety of simple and free activities. These included: cloud-watching; yoga; gardening; body-scanning; and mindfully walking to name a few!
The project has helped pupils and staff learn more about the importance of mindfulness, which has now become a natural part of the school day at Penshurst!

Young eco-warriors at Highfield and Brookham schools in Liphook realised their ‘green dream’ by removing meat from their school menu for a day! Meat-Free Monday was the brainchild of Year 7 Eco-Committee members, who wanted to highlight potential environmental and health benefits of plant-based and vegetarian diets. They decided that, despite their school canteen offering meat-free options on a daily basis, they wanted their canteen (for the very first time) to offer only meat-free options! Working with their skilled catering team, they developed a mouth-watering vegetarian menu including: Quorn bolognese in a puttanesca sauce; halloumi fries with chipotle mayo in a sourdough pitta; tortilla chips with a bean chilli; and hummus and falafel flatbreads.
At the end of their service, contented faces, big smiles and clean plates told the Eco-Committee that their action had been a huge success!

Over the last few years Ganton has worked hard on a Healthy Living and Biodiversity project. In a specialist school Healthy Living is an obvious choice; and in this instance they teamed their Healthy Living work with bee and butterfly conservation to fantastic affect evolving the project to something so much more. Ganton now have a ‘Cycle Safari’ social enterprise that is staffed by our students and ran for profit. The project generates money by inviting school groups, mums and toddlers, community groups and other SEN charities to enjoy cycling, conservation and gardening activities. All profits are reinvested in their eco-activities. The project has been a vehicle for raising employability, self-worth and social skills. It has been a HUGE success and transformed their life-skills curriculum.