Our fifth Eco Schools Flag has been granted

Dear Abernyte,

Eco-Schools Scotland Green Flag Award status

I am delighted to confirm that your school has successfully attained an Eco-Schools Green Flag Award. This is an outstanding achievement, so please pass on our congratulations to everyone involved. I suggest that you write to your local MSP and press to make them aware of your award, as it is truly worthy of recognition. Well done!

Assessment Feedback
Congratulations Abernyte Primary School on successfully achieving your fifth Green Flag Award! The work carried out during these past years has been excellent despite the challenges and interruptions brought by the pandemic, and it has been a real pleasure to assess your application. Your chosen topics of Litter, Waste Minimisation and Water were all covered extremely well, showing very clearly your commitment for each of these topics and to your chosen SDG of Responsible Consumption. You have covered all seven elements of the EcoSchools programme, and I have loved learning how the entire school shares the role and responsibilities  of the Eco-Committee as this highlights how embedded Eco-Schools is in who you are as a Abernyte PS. This also becomes evident through your lively noticeboard and your ‘Our World’ Eco Code. You have also demonstrated good measuring and reflection of your actions and results, a great approach at using your actions as an opportunity for learning, and an excellent practice of connecting and developing links and partnerships with the wider community, enriching your journey even more. We know this has been a particularly complex period due to the pandemic, so a very big ‘well done’ to everyone for these achievements and for keeping up with the Eco-Schools spirit!

We also noticed aspects of your work as being examples of good practice. We may use these on our website and social media as case studies to support other schools with their Eco- Schools Scotland work. I have been really inspired by your work, and by the tremendous amount of care and commitment that shine through your application. Despite the feeling of not having been able to carry out some of the actions that you had planned, you have really accomplished so much thanks to your proactive and adaptable attitude, and clearly had a fantastic learning experience thanks to this.

I was extremely impressed by how the time and detail you gave to the environmental review allowed you to highlight something that many times gets overseen: the simple question of ‘why is it important to do something’. Having been able to detect this allowed you not only to learn about the importance of water as a resource in this case, but to bring meaning into your work and to go beyond the usual actions that we see under the topic of water. I thought that learning about the ‘secret water’ needed for the manufacturing of items we use in our daily lives, from a simple A4 size sheet of paper to food, clothing, phones, etc., was absolutely remarkable, especially as this came as an alternative to the original plan, and I was as surprised and shocked as you were about the 10L needed for an A4 size sheet of paper. I really hope these discoveries will translate into changes in the way you and we all consume and use the so many ‘things’ we use and take for granted.

I also thought that the passion you have put into your work on Waste Minimisation and Litter have been fantastic and it is very encouraging to see that your actions have become stands in who you are as Abernyte PS, and that you are actively encouraging the use of reusable water bottles and to refuse some single-use plastics. I was also extremely pleased to hear about the partnership you have developed with your local authority’s Waste Aware unit, and how this allowed you to be a focal point in your community for the recycling of electrical waste, as well as how your perseverance resulted into getting the food waste bin that you were hoping for.
Despite all hardships, this has clearly been a fantastic experience thanks to everyone’s commitment, and I really hope you all feel very proud of these exceptional achievements! You clearly are a great example of what being an Eco-School means. Your Green Flag is valid for a period of two years. As you now start your journey to renew your award by working through the Seven Element process please take into account the following suggestions.

For your next journey it would be fantastic if you can develop a bit further the element of Measuring and Monitoring with the children. Besides the many opportunities that this element offers for the development of skills on numeracy and critical thinking, planning your work with simple but effective ways of measuring the situation at the beginning, during and after your work, allows children to understand even more the impact of their work. It is also an element that teaches our children how through hard work it is possible to set goals that are important to them and to achieve them. Our general advice for this element is that once you have agreed on which topics you are going to be focusing on your next journey, to not forget to ask yourselves questions like ‘what do we want to achieve?’, ‘what would we like to change?’, and of course ‘why do we want to do this?’ before deciding on your next actions. Once you know where you want to arrive (your targets), your actions and how to measure their progress will become very clear.

Keep up the great work, and a big congratulations again to Abernyte PS from everyone at EcoSchools Scotland!
Our team may use aspects of your work as examples of good practice on our website and social media to support other schools during their applications.

Next Steps
• Log in to Eco-Schools Scotland and click 'Start New Application'.
• Make sure all contact details are up to date.
• Start working towards your Renewal Application, due 24 months from when you received
this communication.
• Upload your new Draft Action Plan within three months.

Congratulations once again, on behalf of the whole of the Education and Learning Team, we wish you every success as you move on to your next application.

Daniel Barrie
Keep Scotland Beautiful
Education and Learning Manager
Keep Scotland Beautiful
ecoschools@keepscotlandbeautiful.org