Green Flag School in Liverpool takes Science learning to new heights!
We are always on the look out for schools who do things a bit differently. Luckily, we are blessed with stories of creativity, innovation and positive forward-thinking. Striving for Eco-Schools awards, and putting young people at the heart of practical problem-solving, is a sure-fire way to encourage great ideas. And once that happens – it’s amazing what schools can achieve.
One such story that stood out to us recently is from one of our Green Flag schools in Liverpool, who have big plans for their school grounds and are now making them come to life.
With the new high weighting of Biology on the national curriculum, St Patrick’s Primary decided to go all out and turn an area in their Eco-School in to a Science Garden.
Jenny Davies, Science Lead at St Patrick’s said:
“We wanted to build a special outside space in school dedicated to science teaching and learning. We really value the use of the outdoors in the teaching of high-quality science.
We were also were keen for the children to have access to science in their play, thus our decision to make it a free flow area for children to use in lessons and during their play times. With the addition of the poly tunnel to our school grounds, now felt like the perfect time to start installation.
It is important to us that children have ownership over the area, so to develop a care and respect of the space and the wildlife that will inhabit it. Therefore, children from across the school will grow plants for the garden in the poly tunnel. They will also use the space to design and build bug hotels, hedgehog houses and bird and bat boxes.”
The development of their grounds will strongly aid STEM learning for children, something that many schools tell us is a great added benefit of taking part in Eco-Schools.
We are excited to announce a new partnership with STEM Learning at the National STEM Centre, and will this week be releasing some fantastic, easy to use, resources around linking STEM teaching to each of our nine topics, free to all of our schools.
St Patrick’s was celebrating last month, as they achieved their fifth Green Flag, holding it successfully for 10 years.
And children in the Eco-Committee were very excited to hear that they had got another Green Flag.
“I felt so happy and shocked – I was running around the place! We need to stop our world from getting polluted. We are actually Eco-Superheroes because we are saving the world and the people in it.” Ruaa
“I felt proud because we’ve worked hard and we’re lucky to have a school like this.” Laila
Look out for St Patrick’s in our upcoming Hall of Fame, an online celebration of some of our longest standing Green Flag schools, Assessors and inspiring individuals that have supported Eco-Schools over the years.
Follow St Patrick’s Primary School on Twitter here for all their latest news.
