Welcome To Our New Website! School closed for Easter Holidays 14 - 25 April.
Welcome To Our New Website! School closed for Easter Holidays 14 - 25 April.
Carryduff Primary School

Eco Schools

Eco School Council

Check out some of the activities the Eco School Council have been working on and read reports of our work written by our councillors!

Eco Council 2024/5

Eco Council Members
Megan - P7 rep (Chair)
Noah - P7 rep
Isobel - P6 rep (Secretary)
Luke - P6 rep
Rose - P5 rep
Eilia - P5 rep
Kyle - SCU2 rep
Holly - P4 rep
Reuben - P4 rep

Action plan 23-25

Please see the document below which shows our updated action plan for the school year 23-25. 

Eco Reports 2023-25

Sustains Pedal Week


Sustains Pedal Week is a week when you ride, scoot or walk to school. Eco club made posters and gave out prizes to people who walked, scooted or rode their bike to school.
Sustains Pedal Week was on the 18th to the 22nd of March. The goal of doing it was to encourage more people to walk or take a bike or scooter to school.
 Eco club went for a walk around the school to see how many people had taken part in Sustains Pedal Week. We also gave out prizes to the people who took part.
We made posters and gave them to all the classes and explained what you had to do to get a prize. We were very happy with the results that we got. There were lots of people how took part and got prizes.
 
By Megan and Evie

Power down day


Eco club held a power down day to save energy within our school, we monitored energy usage the week before and the week of our power down to assess the difference and energy we saved!
On power down days we tried to turn off all lights a limit electrical items used on the day.
We made posters to remind people of the power down day and information was shared on dojo.
We saved energy within our school through the power down day. We made posters to encourage everyone to continue turning of lights and electrical items of when not in use to continue saving energy.
​
By Noah, Kyle and Luke

Fairtrade food tasting


Our eco club hosted a fairtrade food testing session with P4 as well as a fairtrade break day. We started by explaining fairtrade and its benefits for farmers and workers in developing countries.
We tasted fairtrade chocolate, learning about the cocoa farmers in west Africa and how fairtrade helps ensure they receive fair wages and work under safe conditions.
We also tasted fresh fairtrade fruit such as bananas. We learnt about fairtrade promotes sustainable farming in countries such as Latin America and Africa.
Everyone enjoyed trying fairtrade products!!
​
Eilia and rose 

Fairtrade Assembly


In February our eco club held an assembly to teach other classes about the importance of fairtrade practices and how they make a positive impact on the world. During our assembly we also told pupils about fairtrade fortnight and the activities eco club had planned for each of the classes.
We researched and spoke about fairtrade products, the fair pay for producers and the befits of supporting fairtrade. Each of us had a part in the assembly and we all spoke clearly.
We emphasised the importance of understanding where our products come from and looking out for the fairtrade logo in the shops. We showed a video from the fairtrade website which emphasised the importance of fairtrade.
We gave opportunities for questions at the end and answer all of them.
 
By Izzy and Matthew 

One of our major targets for 2022- 2023 was Healthy Eating. The Eco Council worked with our school cooks to create a competition to design a door which P1 won. They also did all the publicity to let the other pupils know about our Eat Them to Defeat Them campaign. The campaign ran for 7 weeks.

We won the overall national Eat Them to Defeat Them prize, which included £1000 for our school. Our cooks and principal went over to Birmingham to collect the prize.

Reusing at our PTA events.
We've been working hard to try and encourage reusing at our school fairs. At our Christmas fair this year the PTA helped us with tackling reusing by encouraging parents to bring in unwanted gifts to be used as tombola prizes. This helps us reuse unwanted presents and also makes money for our school! We also asked the PTA if we could encourage parents and children to bring a reusable bag to take home their prizes and items they bought. We designed posters to put up around school and on our school facebook page and class dojos to publicise it.
Thanks for your help!
RSPB Big Schools Bird Watch
As part of our Eco Council activities we did a bird survey around the school grounds. We were all given clipboards with sheets of the different types of birds we could spot. We saw a few different types of birds including crows, blackbirds and sparrows. This survey is important because it tells us how many birds live around our school. We want to increase the number of birds around our school. A good way to do this is by putting up some bird feeders containing foods that they like and are safe for them to eat. Another way is by putting up bird baths for the birds to wash in them. We can then repeat the survey to see if it has worked.    
​Written by
 Erin Robinson  P5
Stormont Trip
My Trip to Stormont by Ellis Lowry SUC2
 
I went with our eco school council on a bus to Stormont.  We had to stop and pick up more children from different schools on the way.  When we got there, we had to go through security, then get a ticket to get us entry into the building.  
 
We went into the middle of the building which was huge and amazing.  We had a tour around, and the guide told us some interesting facts.  She told us that during WW2 they were afraid that the enemy would find them and bomb them, so they decided to cover up the whole building in cow manure!  It worked, but it took 2 years to clean it off!!!!!
 
We went into the chambers and learnt all about how things are managed and how decisions are made.  In the chambers the two sides have a debate.  If they can’t decide on the best outcome, they jeer at each other to see who can shout the loudest.  I had a turn starting a debate about school uniforms and whether we they should be forgotten or not.
 
We went upstairs and watched a video about politics and voting.  I volunteered again and got picked to pretend to be a prime minister and give my case.
 
I really enjoyed my trip to Stormont.
Green Fingers
One afternoon when we were in school all the members of the Eco Council got to go outside and plant seeds and bulbs.  The daffodil bulbs were donated by Saintfield Nursery and we planted them around the front of the school.  The wildflower seeds were from Grow Wild Charity and we planted these in the sensory garden.
We helped a local florist, called Janet, to plant flowers in the planters at the school entrance. We hope they will bloom all year round.
We also made wildflower posters so that the whole school can understand the names of each of the flowers. 
It's great to be able to plant flowers at school instead of doing work! It also increases the number and different types of insects, giving them food to eat. I think the flowers make the school look and smell nicer!
I enjoyed doing something different and getting out into the fresh air. I'm looking forward to seeing how the seeds have grown into flowers when they bloom – hopefully someone is remembering to water them!
​
By Martha Price P4
FOOD WASTE WEEK
The UK produces an estimated 14 million tonnes of food waste each year.
 
Carryduff Primary School held a Food Waste Week in November 2019 to learn about food waste and what it does to the environment.
 
Eco Council promoted our Food Waste Week by creating posters for each class to advertise the fun week ahead. The Council also shared information with all the pupils about our Food Waste Week in assembly. All pupils were encouraged to use food bins rather than normal bins. Drawings were designed to put on the food bins showing what to and what not to put in them. During this week each class took part in fun activities and found out more facts about food waste and how to reduce it.
 
P.1 used brown bananas to make muffins and P.2 used fruit that was going off to make smoothies. They were delicious and everyone loved making them.
 
P.3 had a visit from a dietician to talk about portion sizes and how if you only put what you're going to eat on your plate then you would not have any wasted food. It was very interesting.
 
P.4 took part in a science experiment on how to prevent fruit from going off too quickly and P.5 had a local Waste Education and Promotion Officer come in to talk to them  about the impact of food waste and using brown food bins. Everyone really enjoyed learning something new.

P.6 had fun doing a science experiment to work out where is best to store food and prevent it going off, and finally P.7 had a visit from Fare Share charity to tell them about how to reduce food waste by collecting food from shops that hasn’t been bought that will go off soon and giving it to people in need. This is very important to make sure everyone has enough food to eat.

I think the Food Waste Week was very successful as everyone enjoyed and learned from it.
Thursday Clubs with Mrs Thompson are collecting food bins from all the classes and recording how full they are. This is planned to be a class competition. 

Hopefully everyone will reduce the amount of wasted food in school and at home, and if they do have food waste, it goes into the brown bin to be recycled.

By Rachel Kelly P7
Active Travel Week
Active Travel Week is an annual school event to promote healthy living and exercise and was held on Monday 21st to Friday 25th of October.
 
Active Travel Week was advertised with posters, class dojo, the school Facebook page and announcements in assembly to encourage children to take part.
 
In Active Travel Week we had lots of fun activities including Ditch The Dark Day and The Walking Bus. In Ditch The Dark Day the school children were encouraged to dress up in bright colours and walk to school. It was a really colourful day, the school pupils made a big effort and we all had a lot of fun
 
The Walking Bus started at the shopping centre at 8:30am. Parents and school pupils walked to the school and then had a healthy breakfast in the dinner hall. I enjoyed The Walking Bus there was a great turn out and we had a really yummy breakfast and had a great time.
 
On the run up to Active Travel Week the teachers recorded the number of pupils who actively travelled to school and compared the data with the number of pupils who participated on Active Travel Week to measure its success. This was a very successful week and I am really looking forward to do it again this year.

By Olivia H P6