Trust News

We are very pleased to tell announce that our Eco-Committee at Samuel Ryder Academy have been awarded an Eco-Schools Green Flag.

Eco-Schools noted the following:

It's wonderful that you have appointed such a large Eco-Committee, this shows your schools excellent commitment to both the programme and the eco-cause. It was great to see how many different ways you and your Eco-Committee have communicated the work that you have been doing from social media, newletters and your Eco-Board.

We loved how all of your Eco-Committee were involved in creating your Action Plan and your 3 topics.

1. Biodiversity – we love that you will be planting wildflowers and trees in your school grounds and growing your own food in your allotment so you can have plant-based choices and learning about local plants and wildlife, these are amazing actions for this topic!
2. Global Citizenship - well done for supporting your local community by collecting for local charities, it is a very difficult time at the moment for many people and the work of your Eco-Committee will be massively appreciated.
3. Litter and Waste – It is great that you have set up a paper recycling system within your school and carried out a litter pick and are in talks with your canteen over packaging – your school is now recycling more than ever and this is because of the hard work and passion of your Eco-Committee - well done!  Your curriculum links are great and it was lovely to ready about the different work students have been focussing on this year that cover Energy, Transport and Water, Litter, Healthy Living and Biodiversity. This approach looks at the big issue of climate change in a holistic way, which is the best approach to understanding and appreciating the enormity of the issue. Great work!

Your Informing and Involving work is very strong – you have shared your work with the school community using many different formats such as assemblies, newsletters, posters and tutor time resources and you have clearly looked externally and engaged with lots of different campaigns, projects and organisations. This is a great example of a collaborative approach we will all need to adopt to combat climate change - your application was a collaborating masterclass and made us feel really positive for the future. We loved reading about your greatest overall success being how engaged all of your students now are in environmental issues and their environmental impact they have on the environment. Your main challenge is very similar to what many other schools have also told us about, and you are perfectly correct when you say teaching your students that small changes in their behaviour can be just as impactful and sustainable to the environment as changes on a much larger scale. Your monitoring and evaluation work is also very strong I hope you and your Eco-Committee take great pride in your achievements, when listed it's almost astonishing how many there are - everyone involved should be incredibly proud of the changes they have made. 

Congratulations to everyone for the great work you have managed to do, especially throughout the pandemic and lockdown. You should all be very proud of your amazing work and the great application you have submitted, it has been an absolute pleasure reading about all of the great things you have been doing. You are most definitely a worthy Eco-Schools Green Flag Award winner.