Yester Primary Green Group

Jobs:
Mrs Thomas gave out the jobs after the job applications had been reviewed:
Chair: Daisy
Secretary & Publisher: Jasmine
Nursery Link Officers: Tom, Phoebe & Isla
Communications: Kuba
Litter: Isla Daisy
Energy: Tom
Water: Phoebe
School Grounds: Jaydan & William

 
Meetings:
These will be held twice a month and will be held during class time, similar to pupil council.
 

School Fair:
Group asked for volunteers to sort school uniform for recycling. Whole group to do, Mrs Thomas to organise time.

Environmental Review:
Mrs Thomas explained environmental review, sections divided ready to be completed and then information looked at and used to devise action plan. Reps to complete sections in twos and return to Mrs Thomas.

Litter Picks:
Discussion about litter picks. Daisy to find out when P5 will complete these and organise rota for after this time.

Thank you to all of you who bought your unwanted textiles to school in December we raised £114. A good effort Yester!

Yes it is official Eco-week has been confirmed as the week beginning the 12th of May. The team have lots of great ideas again this year including no power hours, gardening, competitions and links with the Road Safety Officers as it will also be Walk to School week. Mrs Thomas as a few ideas too as it will be science week as well. What a busy week!

Watch this space for an update about what treats are in store for you and the Green Team will be kicking it all off with an assembly on Friday 9th May.

Lastly a big Green Team welcome to Fergus who will be joining us as a Primary 4 rep taking on the role of Infant Liaison Officer which was vacated by Joseph when he moved on to pastures new. Good luck to you too Joseph and we all hope you are enjoying your new school.

Mrs Thomas

We have harvested the last of our vegetables from the veg beds and look at the size of our leeks, they are huge! As the current P4 planted the vegetables when they were in P3 Debbie created a special treat for them. She cooked a delicious leek pie. Honor thought it was so yummy that it should go on the school lunch menu! A huge thank you to Debbie and a big well done to our leek growers in P4!

Firstly let me introduce my new Green Team!

In a  change from previous years I have reps from all the school year groups and hope to have reps from the nursery very soon.  The upper school reps are:

Chair and secretary: Marta P7

Publisher: Annie P6

Infant Link  Officer: Joseph P4

Communications Officer:  Harry  P7

Litter and Recycling Officers:  Rory P5 and Rachel P6

Energy Officer: Tom P6

Water Officers: Eliza P6  and Harry P7

School Grounds  and Biodiversity Officers: Eliza P6 and Jack P4

The children had to fill in a job application form stating why they were  applying for the post they were and why they were the perfect candidate for the  job. Posts were then allocated according to  the applications. Second job posts   were agreed by all members of the upper school team and allowed children who had not got their first  choice to help out the person who had got the job.

The lower school reps are as follows:

Primary 3  – Evie and Rudie

Primary 2 – Toby and Ava

Primary 1 – Sebastian and Molly M

Now all though these children do  not have specific job remits their jobs  are just as important as they  will need to feed back to their classes what the upper school reps have been doing, pass their classes thoughts and ideas to the upper school reps, attend a  termly meeting and take part in lots of the fun activities  we do. There will be plenty of time for  specific job remits  as they move through the school!

So what have we been doing?

Well we held a very successful assembly in September when we shared with the school who the team  was, what our  aims were  and the  story of  poor Polly Bag  who  hadn’t been looked after at all well.

In  September we also held Planet Picnic which was great fun even the wasps enjoyed it! Debbie organised a special  menu for us, the  sun  shone and lots of parents managed to  come  in and have lunch with us. Thank you  to everyone but an especially big thank you  to Debbie and  her team in the kitchen as well  as Alan who had  to move all the lunch tables outside! Not only did we have lunch but we also  encouraged everyone to take  part in  some gardening. As you know the Green Team have been responsible for keeping on top of our rather large patch  which is no mean feet. This year we have encouraged all the classes to get involved  and handed over a part of the school grounds to each class to look after. Well done  to  all those classes that went out to garden, I also spied a few parents helping too which was  fabulous.

Rag bag week also took place in September but unfortunately wasn’t as successful as it normally is. Maybe we did not published  it as much as we normally do, maybe it was too close to the start of term, maybe we  have cleaned you out of all  your old clothes! If you have any thoughts as to why please let one of the team know.

So what next I hear you ask?

• We  will  be getting  down to the nitty gritty of what we need to do to keep our Green Flag as reassessment will happen in June.
• Make  sure we  have put together  our action plans for the year ahead
• Litter picks  will recommence
• We will make some decisions about what we will recycle this year.
• Get a date in the diary for Eco-week
• We will need to  do  some  work in the vegetable plot

As ever we  will keep you posted!

And finally…..

Thank you to the  2 parents who have volunteered to help with  the gardening! Please if there is anyone else out there who feels they can offer any of their precious time let us know.

Mrs Thomas

As many of you are now aware looking after our school grounds is a huge undertaking. The children have put lots of work into establishing the various areas of the grounds but as you can imagine the maintenance of this involves a considerable amount of time. This year rather than it being just the Green Teams responsibility we are getting all the classes involved. Each class has responsibility for an area of the grounds.

We are hoping to enter the Open Gardens scheme again this session and in preparation for this we are keen to get a team of parents together who would like to support us in keeping the school grounds under control.  Anyone who is able to help out would be much appreciated and if we get enough volunteers maybe we will be able to establish a rota. Please leave a message for me at the office if you can offer any time.

Many Thanks,

Mrs Thomas

For the last few years Keep Scotland Beautiful have been running the One Planet Picnic as part of its Eco-schools programme with the aim of highlighting where our food comes from and considering the effect this has on our planet. Local celebrity chef Tom Kitchin is supporting this year’s picnic. We have decided to join the fun this year and will hold Yester’s One Planet Picnic on the 12^th September. Debbie is planning a special menu for us thinking about local and seasonal produce. We are also hoping to include some of the produce from the school vegetable plot for the children to try. Parents are welcome to come and join us on the day, just bring your picnic basket!

If you would like more information about One Planet Picnic follow the link below, which should hopefully work!

http://www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/sustainable-development-education/eco-schools/ten-topics/food-and-the-environment/one-planet-picnic/

Mrs Thomas

Welcome back to another year of all things Green! Whilst you have all been enjoying a well earned rest we have managed to achieve a few things.

The vegetable bed has thrived with a little help from our helpful janitor Alan (BIG THANK YOU ALAN!). Although our rocket and spinach has gone to seed, our potatoes are ginormous (they taste amazing too), our beans have gone bonkers and our tomatoes are looking tremendous. We are  hoping to harvest  the potatoes this week and are hopeful for beans (if Mrs Hilsley has left us any!) and tomatoes in time for our One Planet Picnic in September. More information  on this exciting event will follow shortly.

I also signed us up for the Royal Horticultural Societies Campaign for School Gardening just before the end of last term and over the holidays we have been awarded both Level 1 and Level 2 awards! If you would like more details see the RHS schools page. It’s a great project and one I am very keen for us to be involved in and I am hoping we can achieve more awards  before the year is out.

As you know in June 2012 we gained our first green flag 🙂  This year we will be reassessed to see if we can  hold on to our flag so lets make this year an extra green one!

I’m looking forward to meeting my new  team and will post details once I have them.

Mrs Thomas

Due to Olivia we have not been quite as busy as normal but since our wonderful production is over we have turned our attention back to all things green rather than all things dramatic.

Rag Bags

This terms Rag Bag collection raised us £52 so thank you to all those who donated. We have yet to decide what we will put this towards but we will keep you posted.

Trim Trail

The installation of the new trim trail is due to start on the 11th March so we are all very excited about that. The Green Team will be meeting with the playground squad shortly to organise a rota for pupil use as we expect it to be a popular place to play.

Litter – How can you help?

The Litter and Recycling Officers are currently drawing up a new litter pick rota so expect to see the team out and about soon. So how can you help? We want to be proud of our school and show it off to its best every day so please ensure that you put all your rubbish in a bin especially those milk carton straw wrappers,  they get everywhere! Watch out the classroom  spot checks will be starting up again shortly too. The Green Team are keen to name and shame both classes and staff who don’t look after their rubbish properly…. you have been warned!!!! Of course Wilt the Gnome will be making an appearance in the best classrooms, let’s hope he makes it out of Primary 1 this year they were super stars last year and no other class  got a look in.

Climate Week

It is National Climate Week this week and the Green Team will be taking part in the National Climate Week challenge. We can’t tell  you anything about it yet as it top secret but we will bring you a report on our challenge soon. Good luck Green Team!

Kitchen Vegetable Garden

The Green Team and kitchen staff have plenty of ideas about what they would like to see grown in the kitchen garden but if you have any requests or ideas now is the time to let us know. Leave a comment on this web page or put a note in the suggestion box on the Eco board table.

Disappointing News!

I was very sad to see that  someone does not appreciate all the hard work we have put into the school  grounds and has broken our Jubilee Plum Tree. Please look after all our living things especially our fruit trees as if we are kind to them they will reward us with fruit for the kitchen staff to create wonderful puddings to enjoy at lunch time. Lets hope we can look after our remaining trees and plants.

And Finally….

Eco-week will soon be upon us. We have lots of good ideas but if you have any suggestions for activities or themes you would like to see covered during our week leave a comment or pop a note in the suggestions box.

Mrs Thomas and the Green Team

At last we are back up and running! Here’s a quick look at what we have been up to:

Introducing the Team:

Chairman – Sam

Secretary – Ewan H

Publishers – Lucy and Beth

Communications Officer  – Ellen

Litter and Recycling Officers  – Ewan and Tilly

Energy Officer – Millie and Joesph

Water Officer  – Samantha

Grounds and Biodiversity Officers – Eve and Tom

Plants Galore!

A huge thank you to Caroline Samuel who has been helping us plant up bulbs and make beautiful Christmas table decorations which we sold at the Christmas fair and also at our Christmas assembly, making a healthy profit for the Green Team kitty.

Trim Trail

Exciting news we now have planning permission for our school trim trail. The work is scheduled for early March so hopefully  our new trim trail will be built in time for summer play times.

Harvest

We had a fantastic harvest from our first season using out new vegetable beds. Debbie used the produce to create some fantastic dishes for our tasting table and we hope to grow even more in 2013. Thanks to all who made this happen!

And Finally

Have a lovely Christmas and don’t forget to recycle those Christmas cards and  trees!

Best Wishes,

Mrs Thomas and the Green Team