St Luke’s Eco Code

At St Luke’s we follow our eco code:

Reduce using cars and walk to school

Turn off the taps to save water

Lights out when not in use

Use less paper so we can save trees

Keep our school clean and green

Ensure you reduce, reuse, and recycle!

Don't litter!

Save our school by following the code!

If you have any ideas about how to support our School to stay green, or want to know how you can help, speak to your class Eco Warriors!

2023 - 2024

17.04.24 - Today we went for a walk up to the conservation area to see what has grown over the last few months. We found out that our next steps are to re-create the dens which were made last year so it is ready for the Summer as well as paths needing to be made so that we can access the far back. Hopefully the weather will improve so we can spend more time outdoors!

22.03.24 - We have received our results from the Plastic Count and found out that the Eco team threw away 334 pieces of plastic. It was really interesting to see how much was recycled and how much was sent to other places to get rid of safely. After the Easter holidays, we are going to let the school know how they can reduce plastic to help our planet. 

13.03.24 - This week the Eco-Warriors have been set a challenge to record how much plastic is recycled or thrown away at home as part of Science Week. We will collect the results next week! They have also been busy weeding, planting wild flower seeds and taking pictures which represent March! We are glad to finally see signs of Spring around the school grounds!

07.02.24- Today the Eco Warriors were out gathering pictures which represented February as part of Earth's frame.

24.01.24 - Today we finally managed to get outside! The team were told and shown what to do and they worked together so well to start clearing out the beds.  We hope the weather stays on our side so that we can get to work! 

This year we have decided on our new Eco team members, our display board is ready to go, but we are yet to complete out first session! We have experienced very cold weather and very wet weather so we have been unable to get outside.

In the mean time, we are going to make sure the whole team understand the Eco code, and will be carrying out litter walks around the school so it is clean and tidy!

The first session of every month will be dedicated to 'Earth's Frame' where the Eco Team will capture 1 photo showcasing an amazing picture they have taken within the school grounds. We look forward to showing you our first set out photos in the new year! These will be displayed on the website, in our newsletter and in our Earth's Frame book on our display board.

2022 - 2023

09.02.23 - Over the last 2 weeks, we have finally managed to get outside! We have started clearing out beds, tidying up pots and we are getting ready to start planting to create a flower garden this year! Pictures to come soon!

27.01.23- The last few weeks we have been finishing off our posters. Today we got to put them around the school in important places. We are so happy with the way they have turned out! It has really helped to remind us to switch lights off when they are not being used. 

05.01.23 - This week we continued designing posters. They should be finished soon and in 2 weeks we will be putting new signs near light switches to help with saving energy and electricity!

08.12.22 - This week we designed posters about switching lights off so that we can put them around the school to help with our energy. We can't wait to show everyone what they look like!

24.11.22 - Today we fixed our bottle lid display. It was great to see team-work amongst new members of the Eco group!

10.11.22 - The year 6 leaders along with Mrs Chana decided on the Eco members today! We told the school in assembly and look forward a great year of improving our school!

28.10.22 - Mrs Chana announced in assembly today that she is looking for volunteers to join the Eco-Warriors! We have 2 Year 6 leaders from last year ready to lead a new team! If you would like to join, your teacher will hand you an application form which you will need to fill out at home and bring back to school. The year 6 leaders along with Mrs Chana will choose children together and will let you know in assembly who has been chosen to be part of this year's team. 

It is really important that you attend every Thursday lunch time if you would like to join. The last few years have started out with so many children and only having 6 children at the end. This means those who wanted to join may not have had the chance to do so. So really think about whether you can come on Thursdays all year round and fingers crossed you will be chosen! We look forward to reading your application forms!

2021-2022

This year the Eco Warriors are back! We found a great team and started off by carrying out an Environmental Review after a very long time to see what we needed to work on. With this information we created an action plan. 

This afternoon we started making a bug hotel out of spare bricks we found on the ground. We spotted some insects already making themselves cosy!

Today we gathered different types of trees and have started looking after them by watering them often. 

We have decided to take part in a huge creative project to raise awareness of reducing litter in our seas and oceans. We would like to create an underwater scene out of plastic lids only! In order to do this we need your help! Please start collecting plastic lids of all colours and hand in to your class teachers who will pass them onto the Eco-Warriors every week. We can't wait to see what the final display will look like. Please wash lids before handing them in. Thank you!

The next 2 weeks we will be litter picking. We have started off with the playgrounds and corridors and next week we will be collecting litter from the field and conservation area.

The last few weeks we have been working hard to create our plastic lid display! Please continue collecting lids - it is looking great but we have much more to do!

This afternoon we made a plan for our fruit, veg and flower beds. We scattered wild-flower seeds, and have also planted various types of flowers in trays ready for germination!

Today we made sure our peace garden area was litter free! 

Our flowers have come up over the last few months and we are so happy that these are attracting insects like honey bees and ladybirds! It has really brightened up our growing area!

Our display has finally come to an end and we are so amazed by what we have created! Thank you to everyone's support for collecting the lids as without this we would not have been able to create such a powerful message. Our display can be found in the hall and thank you to the dedicated Eco-Warriors too for continuing with this each week!

Our Eco club has now finished for this year. Thank you to the small group of girls for continuing your efforts each week and showing your dedication. We hope you enjoyed your thank you gifts!

If you would like to take part next year, keep an eye out for a message in assembly after October half-term where Mrs Chana will give you more details of how to join.

If you would like to join Eco, it is really important that you attend every week to be able to carry out tasks. Showing dedication and commitment to something is a great skill to learn and keep for life and helps the Eco-Warriors to continue with weekly activities to help our school. 

2020-2021

During this time we experienced COVID therefore there were not any tasks we could carry out across the school.

2019 - 2020

This year Miss Dosanjh will be taking over Eco and we have had so many children apply. All children have been given an opportunity to join this year and they've been split into 3 groups which will be rotated weekly.

Our first job is to carry out an environmental review and complete an action plan for the year, and then present our findings to the whole school in an assembly.

Keep checking this page to see our projects and how we are getting on!

Environmental Review and Action Plan

Today we had our first Eco meeting with over 30 members. We carried out an environmental review in groups and discussed which areas we would look at for our action plan. This year we will be focusing on...

• Waste
• Marine
• Energy

Our projects will involve things like having designated compost areas and recycling water to use in our water butt. We will also be collecting crisp packets and bottle lids to reduce waste. We are also currently thinking of ideas to reduce energy at our school. Keep checking to see what we have been up to.

05.03.20

This week we planted our marigold plants into bigger pots so they have more room to grow. We also planted a range of vegetable seeds. As it was World Book Day, we had an author visit the school. He was the first person to create a book which was made out of recylable material. The pages had carrot seeds in them too! We thought this was a brilliant idea!

27.02.20

This week we have started preparing for planting. We put compost modules into cups and have left them to expand with water. We scattered wild flower seeds to attract more bees into our grounds this year and also planted flower seeds so they can germinate.Our daffodils have grown too! 

13.02.20

We have finally managed to count all the crisp packets that have been sent into school over the last 2 months! We counted 1132 crisp packets in total! We are glad that this will be recycled into new material to use again, rather than go into land fill which can take up to 90 years to decompose!

30.1.20

This week we have finished moving the beds into our growing area and have almost completed adding gravel to the floor. While we wait for some more to arrive, we have filled the beds with compost, moved the daffodils over to our area, and started planting flower seeds.

16.01.20

This week we showed a lot of resilience and perseverance as we moved our growing boxes and started laying down gravel. We really enjoyed working together as a team!

09.01.20

We used a lot of team work skills today to help clear the growing area as we are transforming it into a new area with more growing beds this year. We moved extra materials, laid down sheeting on the floor ready to put our planting boxes on and started adding compost to some of the beds. We can't wait to see the final result in a few weeks time!

We are really looking forward to getting stuck in with this gravel and compost. Thank you to the nearby housing development for donating the gravel to our school!

19.12.19

Today we finished off planting the last of our daffodil bulbs. We hope to see them in Spring!

13.12.19

The last 2 weeks we have been monitoring energy across the school and uploaded this to be recorded. We will monitor again after Christmas to see how much energy we saved by switching lights and other things off when they are not in use. Some of us also went around the school and put up stickers in the places we thought would help save energy.

14.11.19

This week we have looked at pollution around St. Luke's. We designed posters to remind adults to switch off their car engines when parking near school to reduce the amount of pollution going into the air.

07.11.19

This week we had a huge task of counting all the crisp packets we have collected. Altogether we counted 477 packets! Well done to everyone at St. Luke's! That was collected in 1 month and now we want to beat this number for next month so keep adding them to the box. Please remember not to add any cookie, popcorn or chocolate packets.

31.10.19

We have been very busy over the last few weeks. This is what we have been doing...

- Collecting a lot of crisp packets and bottle lids

- Collecting rain water

- Filling up our compost bins with leaves from the field

We have also achieved our Bronze Certificate! Thank you to all the Eco Warriors for your hard work so far. We are now working towards our Silver Certificate.

03.10.19

This week our jobs were...

- to fix the water butt and place it somewhere where we can access and add the water

- design our boxes to start collecting crisp packets and bottle lids

- tidy up our growing area

- organise our Eco assembly for Monday!

2018 Team

This year Miss Smith was amazed at the popularity of applications! 53 children applied! This year, due to the popular demand Eco Warriors will work termly, 15 children from across the school have been selected for either Autumn, Spring or Summer term- key an eye out on the Eco display board to see if you have been selected. Thank you so much to everyone who filled in an application form. 

Picking our Potatoes!

Our potatoes have finally grown! The Eco-Warriors plus some helpers mucked in to dig them out. They were not as good as last year, however we have all decided to cook them next week along with mint and a side of salad that has grown in our planters.

Flourishing Treats!

With all the rain over the last few days, our planters have overgrown with the things we planted! Look at our planters!

Growing area improvements

Over the last few weeks the Eco-Warriors have taken down the recycled greenhouse as it wasn't in much use, and instead we recycled the parts. The plastic bottles were sent away to the recycling centre, and the wood used to make the frame was re-used to make planters in our growing area. 

The Eco-Warriors have done an amazing job along with Miss Dosanjh to section off the ground, and we are now happy with the end result. It is ready for September when we arrive back to school after our long break!

Friday 22nd April - Food Fair

In preparation for our food fair as part of 'Food for Life', the Eco Warriors helped with making bracelets and painting plant pots to sell sunflower seeds. A few were given to each class to sell and by the end of the afternoon they were all sold! The money raised will go back into the school to buy things like compost, seeds, equipment, etc.

Outdoor growing area

We have recently got 2 compost bins which we are adding to regularly to make our own compost.

With the help of Mrs O'Donovan we have made a new herb planter which we will add a variety of different herbs too.

We have also started sectioning off our growing plot by collecting natural resources and making borders with these.

Recycling plastic bottles

The Eco-Warriors came up with a great idea to recycle plastic bottles. They cut off the bottoms and put them together in a flower shape to plant flowers. They used the tops of the bottoms as mini green houses to germinate the seeds and create warmth.

One of our first meetings this year highlighted the Eco Warriors wanting to create products from recycled containers. We collected the milk bottles from Reception and began to cut off the bottoms, turn them upside down and fill them with soil ready for planting!

In these milk bottles, we have now planted peppers, flowers, and black beans. Once these have grown we will plant them outside.

Leaf Compost Challenge!

With the children now back to school, I have given the children a challenge to create leaf compost. With all the leaves on the field now it is Autumn, what better way to experiment with them and see if we can make our own soil!

The children began with raking leaves and filled 6 or 7 big black bags! These were then carried across to the conservation area and left behind trees to decompose. Some of the year 4 children helping, worked out in 6 months time it will be May and this is when we should be seeing the start or part of our very own soil! 

With the recent storms, a large, strong waterproof industrial bag had hooked itself onto the fence in the conservation area. Rather then throwing this away, we emptied our leaves into this bag which was much better.

Recently we have checked the compost and it has reduced since October!

Keep checking our page for updates!

Summer achievements

By the end of summer last year the Eco Warriors achieved many things!

• grow and harvest potatoes, strawberries and green beans
• cooked potatoes into potato salad for the whole school
• planted flowers into tyres to attract wildlife
• planted carrots into tyres too
• Mr Naidoo cleared the conservation area floor making it safer for classes to visit for outdoor learning
• a donated hedgehog house was put into the conservation area
• carried out a litter pick in the conservation area