September 2024
Eco-council
Elson Junior School has its own Eco team, who meet on a Thursday lunch time.
They promote and lead the rest of the school using the moto – reduce, reuse and recycle.
REUSE
The eco-councillors found out that crisp packets take over 80 years to decompose and many of these end up in our bins at lunch time as many children bring a packet in their lunch boxes every day. Over the course of the year, councillors collect the empty crisp and bundle them into rolls of 50 with an elastic band. At the end of the year, they are taken to a company who makes them into blankets for homeless people. Sometimes the children take a selection and shrink them by putting them in the oven. They hole punch a hole on the corner first and then they are able to turn them into keyrings.
REUSE
The eco-councillors found out the it takes 450 years for a plastic bottle to decompose. However, we have 25 of these each day with milk for children to drink. Each class now washes these out each day and saves them up to use for glue pots and for water pots when painting.
REDUCE
Last year, the eco-team went around labelling bins around the school so that it became clear what should go into which bin. They then when to talk to classes and teachers about this and how they could reduce the amount of paper used in class and introduced the use of scrap paper trays.
RECYCLE
Over the last few years, the councillors have set up collecting stations in their classrooms for whiteboard pens, highlighters and handwriting pens that have run out. At the end of the year Mrs Stubbings, who runs the eco-team, takes them to a recycling point and they are sent away to TerraCycle to be recycled.
Junior Road Safety Team (JRSO)
Each year, the Junior Road Safety Officers are trained via Microsoft Teams alongside children from other schools across Hampshire. They learn lots of facts and are shown videos and given information to share with the rest of the school.
They work together to plan a whole school assembly to help everyone stay safe out on the roads and put posters around the school. Last year, they also created a poster competition and gave bike lights as prizes to the winner from each class.
During the year, the JRSO organise Cycle to School week, Walktober, The Big Walk and Wheel Walk and Walk to School week initiatives and check on bike and scooter numbers across the year. The deliver important information to classes across the school.
Each year, the JRSO organise a ‘Bling your ride’ competition and select winners from each class as part of the Be Bright, Be Seen message in the winter months.
Last year, the Junior Road Safety Officers sold reflective gear and bike bells to children across the school. Then, using the money they raised, they bought breakfast snacks for Biker’s Breakfasts in the Summer term.
In July, many of the Year 6 children ride their bikes to Brune Park School as practice for their move to secondary school. They are lead by John Clode, who works for Sustrans. The JRSO organised where everyone should park their bikes and made sure everyone was ready with their bikes and helmets.
All bikes were also checked by the Bike Doctor (John from Sustrans) the day before too. The JRSO again organised everyone.
In July 2023, the school was awarded the Bronze ModeShift award for its efforts to increase levels of sustainable travel across the school. Then in July 2024, the school was awarded the Good Travel Plan award. Much of this was down to the JRSO team.
