Congratulations on passing your Eco-Schools Green Flag!

We are very pleased to tell you that you and your Eco-Committee at Bishop's Waltham Junior School have been successful in meeting the requirements for the Eco-Schools Green Flag Award for 2024.

We reviewed your application and noted the following:

• It’s fantastic that you have such a large Eco-Committee in your school, it shows that your pupils clearly care about our planet and all plants, animals, and insects that live on it. Having multiple adults on your Eco-Committee is a great way to distribute the workload, set an example to young people, and prevent over-reliance on a single staff member! We’re in no doubt that this approach will have massively benefitted your Eco-Schools activities!
• Thank you for uploading a photograph of your team – what a fantastic bunch! Your Environmental Review is packed with comments, and this is exactly what our team enjoys seeing. It’s clear that completing it provided your Eco-Committee with plenty of ideas for creating an impactful Action Plan.
• We could not help but be impressed by the variety of ideas suggested throughout your Environmental Review, our team loved reading about plans to introduce student energy monitors throughout the school. This is a brilliant idea! Your Action Plan contains a diverse range of activities aimed at creating positive behaviours, making an immediate difference to your local environment, and expanding your Eco-Schools’ initiatives into your local community.
• Your Action Plan is clearly aimed at involving as many people as possible, maximising the impacts of your Eco-Schools activities. Monitoring and Evaluation can be one of the more difficult steps of the Eco-Schools’ framework, your Eco-Committee predicted this and proactively developed ways to monitor their projects from an early stage. 
• Environmental education in your school is practical and engaging, empowering young people with the knowledge they need to confidently discuss and address ecological issues. We greatly appreciate your creativity in addressing environmental issues within your learning. It’s obviously not just about covering these topics in your curriculum; you’re using them to enhance the overall learning experience in your school.
• Your application includes a wonderful example of a lesson plan covering environmental issues. This example clearly demonstrates that staff members in your school are willing to go above and beyond to include these important issues in pupil’s learning. Pass on a thank you to them from the Eco-Schools’ Team.
• We particularly enjoyed seeing the pupil’s work that was uploaded such as your Year 3 stained glass project (you have some very talented young people in your school)! Your Eco-Committee have used an impressive variety of methods to promote sustainability and keep their school community informed about their Eco-Schools’ initiatives throughout the academic year.
• Your Eco-Committee expertly used their school blog posts to extend their environmental initiatives beyond school boundaries, maximising the impacts of their work. You have worked with a very impressive array of different groups and organisations this academic year, we especially enjoyed learning about your work with your local parish council as well as hosting an Eco-Day with Milestones Infrastructure.
• Your Eco-Board is a wonderful and informative celebration of your work with Surfers Against Sewage! Taking the time to showcase your Eco-Committee’s work demonstrates the value you place on it, giving them confidence and encouraging engagement from pupils beyond your Eco-Committee. You’ve inspired enthusiastic young environmentalists who are excited about sustainability and empowered to make a difference, so it’s no surprise pupil engagement when enhancing your school grounds and introducing litter picks in the school community has been a highlight of your journey.
• Your main challenge is one that anyone who works in an education setting is familiar with, lack of time! However, rather than giving up, you consistently strive to make a positive impact and that’s truly inspiring. Well done for inviting more staff to join the team, this is a brilliant way to ensure the pressure of supporting the Eco-Committee doesn’t rest on just one person’s shoulders.
• Your final Eco-Code is an aspirational call to action, explaining exactly how your school and its pupils will look after our planet – we especially like the line ‘Oceans will be full of plastic and that wouldn’t be fantastic.’ Your Eco-Code serves as a motivational, direct call to action for protecting our planet. Congratulations! Your application truly stood out, and we’re thrilled to award you an Eco-Schools’ Green Flag!

Keep up the fantastic work next year!