What is a Eco Green flag School?
The Eco-Schools programme is designed to be pupil-led, every day the Eco-Schools team have the privilege to learn about impactful environmental actions that have been completed by forward-thinking and innovative young people.
In our experience, school staff and pupils care deeply about environmental issues and have a strong desire to actively protect our planet. However, environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss or plastic pollution are large global issues and the thought of tackling them can be intimidating. Many of those interested in promoting education-based eco-action will wonder:
- How and where do I begin?
- How can I involve and engage young people?
- How can I retain focus and momentum?
- How can we have a positive impact on issues so numerous, overwhelming and global such as the climate crisis or marine plastic pollution?
The Eco-Schools programme provides a solution to all these questions. Our Seven Step Framework has been designed as a very simple environmental management system that empowers young people to introduce and lead environmental actions and education in their school.
As pupils work through the Seven Steps they are able to pick three of our ten Eco-Schools topics to work on. All the Eco-Schools topics help young people engage with environmental issues that are important to them and their local community. They also cover a huge range of sustainability issues including the climate crisis, plastic pollution and biodiversity loss… each topic is also entirely open to pupil interpretation.
The simplicity of the Eco-Schools Seven Step structure makes our programme flexible, meaning it can be adapted and used in any education setting whether nursery, primary, secondary, college, SEND settings or Pupil Referral Units.
