The Eco Committee would like to say thanks again for supporting our textile recycling challenge. Last Thursday, Mr Gray from EDF energy led the school in an assembly to celebrate our achievement. He told us where our collected clothes and textiles would go (either to be reused, upcycled or recycled) and reminded us to continue to hand our used clothes into a charity shop or to take them to a recycling bank.

We collected 341kg of textiles and this gave us 13,640 points to spend on Science equipment. The Eco Committee looked through the list and decided on four items:
* A pumping heart model;
* A motorised solar system model;
* A pack of 5 high speed flyer technology kit; and
* A pack of 10 junk boat model technology kits.

We are very excited to start using our equipment!

The Eco Committee are delighted to share the news that we collected an impressive 341kg worth of textiles.

This gave us 13640 points to exchange for Science equipment. The Eco Committee met on Wednesday and decided on some interesting equipment and technology kits. All will be revealed at our Celebration Assembly next Thursday.

Thanks again to everyone for all your support…and old clothes!

The Eco Committee have signed up to an exciting programme which lets us swap unwanted clothes and textiles for science equipment and resources!

Today Steve and Kenny from EDF Energy’s Wastebusters programme came to deliver an assembly to the whole school.  They reminded us about the importance of the three Rs – Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.  They spoke about only buying the clothes we need (reducing); passing clothes onto friends and relatives when we’ve outgrown them or upcycling clothes to make something else (reusing); and finally recycling what’s left.  They showed us a film about what happens at a recycling plant and explained that sometimes our old clothes and textiles can be made into something else and other times clothes can be sent to other parts of the world where they can be used again.

Anyway, now it’s over to all of us!  Every child has been given a bag to take home.  Please fill this bag with any unwanted clothes, bed linen, towels, curtains and paired shoes, sandals, boots or trainers. We can’t accept duvets, pillows, sleeping bags or bric a brac.  Bring the bag into school before 12th February when our textiles will be collected.  Each bag is worth points and the Eco Committee will choose how to redeem these points for Science equipment.

Please support us in our challenge! Thank you.

The Eco Committee

In late October the Eco Committee had litter week and all the classes focused on learning about litter. On Tuesday the school had a litter pick up we collected a variety of different types of litter like crisp wrappers, chocolate wrapper, tin foil, plastic and some weird things in the Woods like a computer game box! On Wednesday we had a no paper day. This was a challenge for the whole school because we had to write on whiteboards, use laptops and find creative ways of doing our work without using any paper!! Thursday the whole school took part in a litter poster competition. There was so many amazing posters. On Friday the classes took part in making models of our own Eco Mascot, Trashy. Through out the week, small groups from the Eco Committee shared fascinating litter facts with all the classes and also the whole school took part in a wrapper-free snack challenge. Here are the results of the wrapper-free snack challenge.

6. Primary 4/5 – 31%
5. Primary 2M – 33%
4. Primary 7 – 44%
3. Primary 3 – 45%
2. Primary 2K – 66%
1. Primary 3/4- 67%

Primary 3/4 and Primary 2K got extra playtime!  Everyone had lots of fun during Litter week and the Eco Committee spent lots of time at our last meeting deciding on the Litter posters that we are going to display around the school!  More information to follow.

By Katie, P6 Eco rep

The Nursery Morning Group were joined by Primary 6 to help clear the school field of litter as part of school Eco Week. The P6s will be our buddies when we go into Primary 1. It was good fun working together. The field didn’t look very messy at first, but we found loads of litter.

Click here to go to the Nursery Website and see  some photos of us working, and the litter we found. You may need to scroll down to get the photos to appear.

On the 5th of June, Chloe and Ailsa from P4, Lucy C from P5, and Niamh H, Abby and Andi from P6 joined Mrs Capaldi at the Eco Summit hosted by Sanderson’s Wynd Primary School.  We listened to talks from some people at the Council who were talking about recycling in East Lothian and got lots of good ideas from the other schools about the things we could do next year in the Eco Committee.  We took lots of notes that we will share with the Eco Committee at our next meeting.  Here we are getting our photo taken Iain Gray MSP, Stuart McPherson and the children from the other schools.  We are preparing a newsletter to share all our Eco successes this year at the moment.  Watch this space for more news!

The Eco Committee

Next week is Eco Week! We have a few different activities planned, including our usual whole school litter pick up on Tuesday – please remember to bring in gloves to protect your hands! There will also be competitions to write a new Eco Code for the school and to design an Eco Mascot.
Wrapper-free snack challenge
From now on, Monday to Thursday will be healthy, wrapper-free snack days. We will start recording snacks next week, continue our good work during May, and then announce the winning class in early June. Hopefully this, alongside more regular litter pick-ups, will help to reduce the litter in the playground.

Thanks for all your continued support,
The Eco Committee

Our Eco Committee are now meeting once every month and we are coming up with lots of ideas about how we can make Loretto greener! Next term, we are looking forward to starting a gardening club and start plant bulbs, seeds and vegetables in our playground. We are also planning an Eco Week for the end of April when we will have a Litter pick up, competitions to design an Eco Mascot and new Eco Code for the school and many more fun activities. More information to follow!

Our P6 and P7 reps met with Mrs Capaldi to write our Eco Action Plan this week. The areas we are focusing on are Litter, Waste Minimisation and School Grounds. Please have a look on our Eco Board in the Lunch hall to see who your Eco reps are, to read our latest meeting minutes, and to look at our Eco Action Plan.

Next week is our Eco week and the Eco Committee have decided to have a Litter focus. We have thought about lots of fun things to do.  We will be doing Litter themed Literacy, Numeracy and Art in our classes and have a challenge to write a new Eco Code for the school.  For the whole school Litter pick up on Tuesday, each class will have a different part of the playground to clean up. Every child will need to bring a spare pair of gloves to collect rubbish with.  On Wednesday, we will have a wrapper free snack day – please bring fruit or snacks in tubs for playtime.  The healthier, the better of course!  On Thursday, we will have our no paper day challenge.  We will have to think about creative ways of doing our work that day – laptops, whiteboards etc.  It should be fun!

Thanks for reading,

Lucy C and Bruce, P5 Eco reps

PS.  Thanks to Grace C  in P2/3 for the lovely poster!