North Ridge Community School is a Green Flag school.  This means that we have an international accreditation which recognises, rewards and celebrates the environmental achievements of our young people.  We are very proud of the award and our pupils have worked hard to make it happen!

Eco Schools is a charity passionate about engaging young people in environmental education and action. They do this by providing a simple, Seven Step framework that guides, empowers and motivates pupils to drive change and improve environmental awareness in their school, local community and beyond.

The Eco Schools Seven Step framework aims to place young people at the heart of environmental action and supports them to work together to plan, deliver, monitor and evaluate environmental actions in their school.

We have successfully achieved our first Green Flag Award by carrying out the following 7 steps:

1. Eco-Committee, the pupils and adults responsible for leading all things ‘Eco’.
2. Environmental Review, an annual review of our learning environment. 
3. Action Plan, our plan for environmental actions in our school.
4. Curriculum Links, how environmental issues are taught across our curriculum.
5. Informing and Involving, including all pupils, staff members and our local community in our Eco Schools work.
6. Monitoring and Evaluation, measuring the impact of our projects from our Action Plan.
7. Eco-Code, a rallying call that everyone can get behind!

The Eco Committee meets termly to form an action plan. Our chosen topics for this year are:

• Biodiversity
• Healthy Living
• Saving Energy

We have been making sure taps, lights, and screens are turned off when not in use. The Eco Committee are responsible for deciding at our council meetings what elements of school life we should turn from grey to green. Our Post-16 department is recycling old newspapers by tearing them into strips for our local hedgehog rescue centre for bedding. 

Our students have taken part in national bird counts and explored how we can take care of our outside environment in the forest school and sensory garden. 

In addition to the hard work of the pupils, our eco-staff committee has worked hard to ensure that all staff are on board with our eco code which is:

Everyone can help

Communicate; act now not later

Our earth needs help

Care for our school grounds

Open the bin to recycle

Dig for our new plants to grow

Energy will not run out if we save it