Peel Clothworkers’ Primary School staff and pupils are celebrating their award of an Eco-Schools silver award.
 
The award is run by Eco-Schools, which is based in England and has only awarded 5,000 silvers so far. This award follows on from the school gaining its bronze award in September 2009.
 
The award is given for matching up to Eco-Schools’ seven-step framework. The pupils first held elections and voted for a boy and girl in each year from Year 2 to Year 6 to form an Eco Warriors committee.
 
‘The Eco Warriors are the key people in achieving this award,’ said teacher Lindsay Riordan, one of the staff who helped guide the pupils. ‘They made sure the school was aware of their ideas and plans and they carried out an environmental review.
 
‘The review was comprehensive and made the pupils look at obvious areas such as litter and recycling but also the energy consumption of the school, water usage and how pupils travel to school,’ said Diamond Buchan, staff member of the committee.
 
This involved the pupils talking to office staff, the caretaker and headteacher as well as external agencies such as the MEA, the One World Centre, Zurich and the Co-op.
 
This made the Eco Warriors have a completely different view of their school, ranging from getting people to turn off lights and having eternal doors that closed to keep heat in to how much water there is a cistern.
 
Then the pupils helped Mrs Buchan and fellow teacher Dawn Atherton produce an action plan. The Eco Warriors targeted the school grounds, litter, energy use and transport. They produced a noticeboard with information and ideas and contributed to assemblies. They also cleared hedgerows of litter that had blown into the school grounds.
 
During Health Week, pupils were surveyed about how they got to school and they were encouraged to come in a more healthy and eco-friendly way. The Warriors then wrote to Mike Bonner, at the MEA, about energy usage and he supplied some power usage monitors that will be installed and review electricity usage.
 
The school has also joined the Green School Revolution, run by the Co-op, and is looking to develop links with its local Co-op shop in the future on issues such as Fair Trade and healthy eating.
 
The pupils then applied for assistance from Zurich to help revamp the Ferry Boat Garden, a special area of the school grounds that is used by the pupils and the wider community out of school hours.
 
Nikki Stott and came to the school and interviewed the pupils, who also showed her round. Zurich then committed to working at the school for three days, planting 100 bushes, painting a large decking area and stripping and repainting the ferry boat itself – the original vessel that crossed the mouth of Peel harbour and a piece of local heritage.
 
Simon Jones, Headteacher of Clothworkers, said: ‘We were very pleased to gain this award and to have had the support of Zurich. We thank them for the work they did for our school and the benefit of the Peel community.
 
‘We will now look to moving on from this award and continue to challenge pupils, parents and the wider community about what we can do to make all of us more environmentally aware. The issues of global and local sustainability are very important, particularly to the next generation. Schools have a key role to play in raising the awareness of young people of today.’