Eco-Schools at Ashgate Nursery School

Ashgate Nursery School has worked hard over a number of years to create a wonderful outdoor area. The school has an established sensory garden with vegetable patches and a chicken coop, a small pond, a large play area with mature trees and a perimeter hedge, all providing ideal habitats for a range of animals, birds and insects.

Our children spend precious time outdoors in this safe and exciting environment. They learn real gardening skills, grow their own food, study bugs, frogs, birds and much more. They go on adventures and engage in natural activities. The outdoor areas are inspiring in all seasons and provide wonderfully varied and rich learning experiences for everyone. 

The children and staff at Ashgate Nursery School wanted to learn more about how to protect our world and decided to work towards the Eco-Schools Green Flag award. This was achieved in June 2022. We have done this by caring for our garden, growing wild flowers, creating homes for bugs, recycling our rubbish and composting our food waste.

What is Eco-Schools?

Eco-Schools is a global programme engaging millions of children across 64 different countries, making it the largest environmental schools programme in the world. It raises environmental awareness, improves the school environment and creates financial savings for schools. It also engages the wider local community and makes links to the curriculum. You can find out more information about Eco-Schools at http://www.eco-schools.org.uk/

Our Eco-Committee

We have an Eco-Committee consisting of children, parents and staff that meets every half term. We plan how to improve the nursery environment and develop children's awareness and understanding of environmental issues.

The children have completed an Environmental Review of the nursery which covers al the Eco-Schools 10 topics: energy, litter, waste/recycling, water, transport, healthy living, bio-diversity, school grounds, global citizenship and marine. This enabled the Eco-Committee to develop an action plan and work towards achieving its goals.

Eco-School at home

Parents are encouraged to help by continuing Eco-Schools activities at home. We make suggestions for parents on our Tapestry app, through Facebook and in our monthly newsletters. Our suggestions have included:

• Reducing plastic use
• Feeding the birds
• Making bug homes and mini-ponds
• Sponsoring endangered animals
• Holding 'No lights' on Earth Day

We also encourage parents to support our activities at our allotment. If you would like to find out more, please ask a member of staff how you can get involved.