MAKING YOUR JOURNEY TO GREEN FLAG FIT SCHOOL LIFE
Thank you to all those who gave feedback during our Eco-Schools training and took part in our national end of year Eco-Schools survey. The results were overwhelmingly in favour of the proposed changes to help schools on their journey to Green Flag and beyond. Therefore from Monday 1st of October the following improvements will be made to the Eco-Schools programme:
- Step 4 will now become ‘Curriculum Links’ and Step 6 will become ‘Monitoring and Evaluation’
- For the Silver Award schools will need to work on three topics instead of one, the same three you will be working on for your 1st Green Flag
The new pathway to Green Flag will be:
Step 1 Eco-Committee
Step 2 Environmental Review
Step 3 Action Plan (3 topics for 1st Green Flag/ 5 topics for all renewals)
BRONZE AWARD
Step 4 Curriculum Links
Step 5 Informing and Involving
SILVER AWARD
Step 6 Monitoring and Evaluation
Step 7 Eco-Code
GREEN FLAG
Please do not worry none of these changes will affect or alter your online application for first or renewal of Green Flag nor your Green Flag assessment visit- these will remain exactly the same. If you are currently a Bronze Award school who has only been working on one topic you still have until 1st October to apply for your Silver Award. Please remember you would have needed to work on 3 topics for your first Green Flag application anyway.
You will also notice from the 1st October that our Eco-Schools website looks more exciting, there will be specific sections for EYFS/ Primary and Secondary- each with a different look and feel to cater for the age range of pupils and students from your school. Want more support? We are also providing schools with FREE resources for each of the Seven Steps (including videos) that can either be downloaded from the new look Eco-Schools website or your Eco-Schools login.
We have not forgotten the ten topics either. Every Eco-Schools topic will eventually have a National Call to Action for all schools across England to take part in, such as our Keep Britain Tidy Great Big School Clean on 22nd March 2019 for the litter topic or the new (Re)Love Our Stuff Campaign for the waste topic. Each national call to action as they are developed will have an age appropriate education pack linking it to the Seven Steps too.
Finally in recognition of all the Eco-Schools and Green Flag Assessors who have been part of our programme for nearly a generation- we will be launching the Eco-Schools Hall of Fame to celebrate their amazing achievements and share best practice. The Hall of Fame will also allow schools at any stage on their Eco-Schools journey to nominate themselves for the Termly Topic’ awards to inspire others.
We hope you enjoy all the resources and new fun actions to help our busy Eco-Schools. Here’s to the greenest Eco-Schools year ever!
The Eco-Schools Team
