Eco-Schools
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May 2025
School Grounds
GROW To School 2nd May 2025
We were very lucky with the beautiful weather, it was perfect for gardening with Vashti. We weeded, planted cabbage, leek and beetroot seedlings, sowed lettuce seed, and our own home grown radish seeds, mulched, watered and harvested.
Thank you to Morley Glass and Glazing Ltd https://www.morleyglass.co.uk/ for their financial contribution that has helped make these outdoor lessons possible.
We have also used our first tray of soil made by the worms and put it onto our garden.
We planted Butterhead lettuces in Autumn and these were ready to harvest. We dug them up, washed them and sold them to families at the end of the day. They looked fantastic. Lisa will use the rest of them for our school dinners.
Water
As our new plants and seeds need watering, we have started our water monitor jobs again. Our Eco-team thought it would be a good idea to use our Collective Worship buddies groups to share the watering. We have set up a board in the school hall so that we can all see which group will be helping each week. Mrs Kitchen will announce a new group each week in Celebration Worship.
April 2025
School Grounds
Vashti from GROW To School came for our first of 3 gardening days on 3rd April 2025. We all prepared beds, added compost, sewed seeds and watered. When digging, we noticed that we have more worms and other creatures in our soil than in previous years.
Thank you to Morley Glass and Glazing Ltd https://www.morleyglass.co.uk/ for their financial contribution that has helped make these outdoor lessons possible.
Here is our bed plan for 2025
GYOP (Grow Your Own Potatoes)
We have been building up the soil in our bags of potatoes as the plants start to emerge from the soil. This encourages the plants to grow potatoes instead of lots of leaves.
Aspiring Eco-Schools Event at Skelmanthorpe
Thursday 24th April 2025
Along with children from Thurstonland, Farnley Tyas schools, the older members of Denby’s Eco-team attended the Aspiring Eco-schools event at Skelmanthorpe Academy. Skelmanthorpe Eco-warriors presented their Eco-schools topic work and showed us around their grounds. We then heard talks on the Ministry of Eco-Education’s educational resources and Kirklees Climate Commission’s Youth Panel. It was great to make contacts, meet local schools and see what they are doing.
March 2025
Energy
Mrs Wagstaff, Mrs Ackroyd, Dave Wilde and Adam Johnson from Denby Dale Parish Council met with Matt Keyes from Let’s Go Zero on 31st March 2025. Over the next few months Matt will be meeting with us again to support us in writing our own Climate Action Plan. Once written this will give us short and long term plans to work on for not only reducing our school’s energy usage but working towards our school being carbon neutral by 2030.
School Grounds
GYOP (Grow Your Own Potatoes)
All three classes planted their GYOP out in bags. We all had to decide where to place our bags of potatoes. William in Class 2 said, ‘Why don’t we put them somewhere sunnier? I’ve been watching and there isn’t much sun here.’
Class 1 planters
Thank you to Denby Dale District Men’s and Women’s Shed Association for Class 1’s planters. They have now been planted up and are looking fantastic. https://www.denbydalemensshed.org/
February 2025
A big thank you for our parent volunteer gardeners who braved the cold temperatures to start this year’s work on our garden area. Thank you to all our garden volunteers.
Our Eco-schools Action Plan 2025
Here is a copy of our Action Plan 2025:
January 2025
Biodiversity
Thank you so much to Robert Barber for making a hedgehog tunnel to go under our school hedge to make a hedgehog highway. Thank you to Ella and Reuben for presenting it in Collective Worship too.
RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch
Well done to Class 1 who took part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. It was windy weather for spotting birds as a named storm was passing through so well done for spotting a robin and some blackbirds. Year 1 made posters to share ideas for how to look after wild birds and everyone enjoyed making their own bird. Great spotting Class 1!
School Grounds
Karen Hill made another welcome visit, this time bringing a bucket of worms from Nields School to bolster our worm numbers, offering advice on our wormery and to provide us with some information about different wormeries they have tried at Nields. Karen gave us some information sheets with different wormeries on that we will read. Karen also brought us some purple seed potatoes to chit named Salad Blue. How exciting, thank you Karen.
December 2024
Environmental review
All children in school have recently undertaken our annual Environmental Review. There are 110 questions across the 10 Eco-schools topics with an extra other section. The results will help the Eco-team form our Action Plan for the year.
School Grounds
As part of our gardening, children have been taking part in collecting seeds for next year. Here we are podding radish seeds, how tiny they are!
GYOP (Grow Your Own Potatoes) 2025
After the success of GYOP in Class 2 last year, all three classes have signed up for this year. Watch this space!
https://growyourownpotatoes.org.uk/
Global Citizenship
As we had been an award winner at Leeds DEC Global Learning Awards in the summer Mrs Ackroyd was invited to attend the Leeds DEC Global Learning Leeds Annual Celebration. This was an opportunity to hear from inspiring speakers and chat about how we can mainstream global learning in schools. It was very interesting to see Eco-work other schools had been undertaking and how they are incorporating it into their curriculums.
November 2024
School Grounds
Return visit from Karen Hill
We were very pleased to welcome Karen Hill from Nields for a return visit to look at our gardening and Eco-work. Karen brought some purple potatoes her children had grown for us to look at and yes, they were purple all the way through. Karen shared other information and provided us with useful composting advice. Thank you Karen, it was good to see you again.
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Gardening jobs
Children have been carrying out gardening jobs on Friday afternoons. Since our last GROW session we have planted broad beans, planted garlic, watered the lettuces and cabbages and started podding the many radish seeds we grew last year.
Thank you to Mrs McConnell who has also been helping us to maintain our garden area. If any parents or volunteers are interested in supporting us with our gardening, just get in touch.
October 2024
Thank you everyone – our Green Flag Award highlights.
As part of our Celebration Collective Worship the Eco-team thanked the whole school for their Eco-work in the previous year. They provided the highlights from our Green Flag award feedback and let children know that we were starting the Environmental Review. You can see a copy of our presentation here:
Funding
We received news in October that we had been successful in receiving a grant from Morley Glass. This money will go towards paying for our GROW sessions this year.
Thank you Morley Glass.
Eco-Fest presentation at Eco-Fest 2024
Well done to our Eco-team, you represented our school fantastically on Saturday 19th October at EcoFest 2024 organised by Denby Dale Parish Council and held in Emley. Your presentation detailing work the whole school community had been involved in during the last school year was very well received. Compliments included; what super public speakers you were, how the work we have done in school was inspirational for other community groups and how knowledgeable you were.
Also, a Church leader took our information to share with the local church community.
Global Citizenship
Living in Lanzarote
One of our Eco-team recently spent time living in Lanzarote and shared a video they had made about their garden. Children in all classes enjoyed learning about the special garden and learning more about life in Lanzarote. Apparently the house also has a solar powered water heating system and uses recycled water. More info and video below;
Hola!
The garden is a biodiversity hotspot in Lanzarote, the scientist (David Riebold) has planted as many endemic species as possible, which means he never has to water the garden - a miracle considering this is technically a desert climate!
Video
https://youtu.be/QRitgWmyZ9k?si=CtWt3Py2NdVzOr7e
Further information about the garden:
September 2024
School Grounds
A huge thank you for looking after the wormery over summer. The worms were superbly cared for and came back in fantastic health.
Autumn Grow Session
Thank you to FODS who funded our first Autumn GROW session with Vashti. The children tidied the beds, collected radish seeds, planted Brighton lettuce, spring onions, rainbow chard, kale and mizuna and potted up some spring bulbs. We have also been looking after our soil, composting and watering. We also came across a wide variety of creatures when weeding.
There are still plenty of jobs to do in our garden so if there are any adults in our school community who are interested in helping, please get in touch.
Please click here to see our Autumn Bed Plan
Eco-schools and our new school Library
Vashti has left us lots of information about the seedlings we have planted and these have a new home our school library if you would like to find out all about them.
Eco-Fest 19th October 2024 at Emley First School
After hosting the Aspiring Eco-Schools event earlier in the year our Eco-team have been invited to present our work at Eco-Fest in October. Our Eco-team have accepted the offer.
Please enter your poster for display on the theme ‘Promoting Biodiversity’ by returning it to the Eco-team.
July 2024
We have again been awarded the Green Flag award this year with distinction. Congratulations everyone. More info about our award from the Eco-team in Autumn.
Please click here to see our summer newsletter.
School Grounds
GROP (Grow Your Own Potatoes scheme)
Having planted our seed potatoes earlier in the year, it was time for Class 2 to dig them up to see what was under the leaves and soil. Even though we have been enjoying learning about growing plants in science, finding actual potatoes hiding in the soil was incredibly exciting. We reused the compost on the garden. The children decided they would like to make potato salad. They chopped up their chosen ingredients according to their own plans and apparently it was the best meal they had ever eaten! Well done Class 2.
May 2024
Aspiring Eco-Schools event
We were invited to hold the Aspiring Eco-Schools event at Denby by Dave Wilde from Denby Dale Parish Council. Our Eco-team shared our work, showed children from other Eco-teams around our grounds and took part in Eco-art activities provided by other schools. We enjoyed sharing and collecting ideas and meeting other Eco-teams.
January 2024
Action Plan 2024
Eco-team Action Plan 2024 Assembly
Well done to the Eco-team for sharing with school the results of our whole school environmental review and our Action Plan for 2024. This will be available for you to read on our website shortly.
Thank you to both Denby Dale Parish Council and FODS for supporting our plans this year by providing us with funding to carry out our action plan.
Click here to see our assembly and our Action Plan;
June 2024
Denby’s Eco-code
During Health Week all three classes had a go at producing an Eco-code for our school. Class 1 made an amazing poster that is up for all to see in our entrance. Class 2 made their own Eco-song and Class 3 wrote fantastic narrative poems. Here they are;
Global Citizenship
Amazing Mexico Workshop
Hannah from Leeds Development Education Centre ran an ‘Amazing Mexico’ workshop with children in Year 1, 2 and 3 this morning. This was funded through our Eco-schools grant from Denby Dale Parish Council.
The event surpassed our expectations, it was completely engaging with just the right amount of challenge. We made collaborative maps of Mexico using our egg boxes (thank you for bringing them in), looked at the similarities and differences between Mexico and the UK and learnt about bee farmers in Mexico. We also played the Honey Game where teams of children produced honey and were paid for it. The children then had to decide whether to invest their money in education for their children, hospitals or more bee hives.
Some of our most interesting facts of the day were;
Bees use their spit and other bees spit to thicken honey.
Bees have honey stomachs where they collect nectar.
Mexican people pay to go to hospital.
Our top tip for families is to buy Fairtrade.
Thank you to Hannah from Leeds DEC.
Eco-team
The Eco-team did a great job showing Hannah from Leeds Development Education Centre around our school and talking about the Eco-work we are all involved with. Hannah was very impressed with their knowledge.
Leeds Global Learning Awards at Leeds Civic Hall
Leeds Development Centre invited us to their Leeds Global Learning Awards as we were nominated for our Eco-schools work by our Eco-Governor, Joanna Donaghey and Dave Wilde from Denby Dale Parish Council.
It was a fantastic event at a superb location and we were privileged to represent the school and the work we all do. There were over 200 people from lots of different schools in Leeds and the surrounding area. We were excited to receive a Highly Commended for the Community Collaboration Award.
There were lots of inspiration people at the event. We heard about the projects schools were taking part in, especially around Global Citizenship and working with each other.
Our Eco-team made a poster while we were there to display for other schools to see the work we have been doing. On their poster one of they added that we were, ‘A Christian school with green hearts.’ How fantastic!
Thank you, Joanna and Dave, for nominating us.
Global Citizenship
Please click here to see our Summer Global Citizenship Upcoming Events
Global Citizenship
Ryad Alsous from the Buzz Project thoroughly enjoyed his visit to Denby on Wednesday 5th June to talk to us about bees, how important they are and how we can learn from them. We really enjoyed welcoming him into our school too.
To help look after bees, Ryad’s top tip was to plant flowers for them.
Did you know:
- It takes 500 flowers and 2000 bees to make 1 teaspoon of honey?
- Bees live for 7 days but the queen can live up to 5 years?
- The bees will take rubbish out of the hive to keep it clean?
Ryad also bought some of his British honey bees in for the children to look at. In their case you could see the pupae and honey in the hexagonal holes. The bees were mesmerizing.
You can visit the Buzz Project based at Marsden, help look after their bees and make products from their honey and wax. https://www.facebook.com/BuzzinginKirklees/?locale=en_GB
Thank you to the Eco-team for producing our Buzz Project stall posters.
Class 1 were busy as bees too and produced lots of lovely bee fact files.
Energy
Count your carbon results
Two of our Eco-team worked alongside Mrs Hirst to complete the Eco-Schools Count your Carbon Calculation. Please click here to see a copy of our report.
April 2024
School Grounds
GROW
18th April 2024
We spent the day with Vashti from ‘GROW to School’, weeding and planting seeds and plant plugs. We used equipment including trowels, sieves and secateurs and planted cabbages, radish, wildflower, lettuce, peas, onions, leeks and beetroot. Although it was a bit chilly, we just finished before the rain began. We are letting the weather do the watering for now. Well done everyone, the garden looks great.
We all also planted our rainbow sweetcorn seeds in pots and have taken them into our classes to grow. We thought the seeds looked beautiful.
Hedgehog Highway and Wildflower area on field
Vashti worked with the Eco-team and Mrs Mills to identify a suitable location to add a hedgehog highway to our school grounds. Thank you to Denby Dale Parish Council for our Hedgehog highway entrance. Let the Eco-team know if you would like one too.
The Eco-team also decided on an area of our field that can be left for wildflowers to grow and with Vashti and Mrs Mills, marked this area off so that Kirklees gardeners would know to leave it uncut.
Here is a copy of our 2024 garden bed plan;
February 2024
School grounds
Thank you to our super parent volunteer gardeners who have spruced up our planters outside school. They are looking lovely and support our School Grounds Eco-schools’ topic.
Our volunteers have also planted English Bluebells in our wooded area. Did you know that many insects reap the benefits of bluebells which flower earlier than many other plants?
If you would like to join our volunteer gardeners, just pop into school to find out more.
Denby’s new wormery
Thank you to Stacy Townend from Kirklees Recycling for visiting Denby and running wormery workshops for all three classes. Our wormery is now up and running and full of wriggling tiger worms. Did you know that ‘worm tea’ is a great fertiliser?
Grow Your Own Potatoes
Class 2 are taking part in the ‘Grow Your Own Potatoes’ scheme and having chitted our two varieties in the classroom they are now growing nicely in bags outside our class. We will continue to add compost as the plants grow and hopefully get to eat them before the summer holidays. Watch this space.
More info here; https://growyourownpotatoes.org.uk/
December 2023
School Grounds
Visit to Nields School garden, Wednesday 6th December 2023
Members of our Eco-team, our Cook in Charge, our volunteer gardeners and Dave Wilde the Parish Council Countryside Officer and his apprentice Adam visited Nields School on Wednesday. We met with Karen Hill who volunteers her time working with children every week of the year in their school gardens. Karen showed us the fantastic outdoor garden areas they have established and gave us lots of hints and tips for gardening, planting, setting up wormeries, funding and helping wildlife. Thank you, Karen for inspiring us.
November 2023
Eco-Fest
Eco-Fest was held at Skelmanthorpe Methodist Church on Saturday 18th November.
Local school children sent in beautifully designed posters with their own Eco-messages for people to read. Well done to those who made a poster, they were read and admired. Can you see yours?
As well as the children’s posters there were some super stalls and activities and talks on biodiversity, sustainable food, repair and reuse and the Huddersfield Buzz project.
Kirklees Recycling Heroes Awards - Wednesday 22nd November 2023
Our Eco-Governor, Joanna Donaghey nominated Denby C of E (VA) for the Kirklees Schools Recycling Hero Award and Ida for a Young Recycling Hero Award. Amazingly we were shortlisted and invited to attend the award ceremony at Dewsbury Town Hall. Also, in attendance were the Mayor of Kirklees Councillor Cahal Burke and Councillor Yusra Hussain, Cabinet Member for Culture and Greener Kirklees.
The judges were particularly impressed with the contribution Ida had made to our Eco-team, especially as she is now in her third year of supporting school. Ida received a well-deserved first prize in her category for launching the water saving project, informing children in school about how to save water, helping organise water monitor roles and making a poster. Ida has also presented assemblies to our school community and organised projects for the Big Plastic Count, our recycling workshop and more recently ‘Cut Your Carbon’.
The judges also recognised our school for the Eco-work we have all done on topics including the Big Plastic Count, recycling and saving water. We are very proud to let you know that our school received the runner up certificate in our category.
Well done everybody for all your fantastic Eco-work.
Here are some photos of the ceremony, and more information about the awards can be found by following this link: https://kirkleestogether.co.uk/2023/11/23/kirklees-celebrates-its-recycling-heroes-2/
Energy
Eco-Schools - Cut your Carbon November 2023
Denby C of E (VA) First School is taking part in Cut your Carbon Month 2023. If you would like to take part you can find more by using the QR code. Our Eco-team are kicking off the project with an assembly (click here to see their presentation) and checklists will be coming home with children.
Don’t forget to send us photographs to let us know what you are up to. Results in to school by Friday 9th December please.
If you have any questions please get in touch with the Eco-team.
Click here to view a copy of the letter that was sent home.
Eco Fest - Saturday 18th November 2023
We would love to show your posters at Eco-Fest. Return them to school by Friday 10th November. Then see you there!
October 2023
Biodiversity
Congratulations Everyone at Denby!
We have achieved the Green Flag for 2022 - 2023.
Here is our feedback:
We are very pleased to tell you that you and your Eco-Committee at Denby First School have been successful in meeting the requirements for the Eco-Schools Green Flag Award.
We reviewed your application and noted the following:
You have an extremely large Eco-Committee supported by 2 adult members of staff, especially when considering the size of your school this is fantastic! This demonstrates a whole school approach to the Eco-Schools programme and a commitment to environmental education and pupil-led eco-action. It’s brilliant that some young people were given the responsibility for recording meeting minutes, and it would be great for this to extend this to other members in the future. This will allow them to take ownership over the Eco-Schools programme and develop their listening, communication and teamwork skills.
We love the inclusive approach you’ve taken to setting your Eco-Committee. This sets a positive and encouraging tone for your work, which supports a collaborative and community ethos, vital in maximising impacts. Great work!
It's brilliant to read that the Environmental Review helped your pupils appreciate everything that your school is already doing to benefit our environment and identify areas to work on in the future. Your Eco-Committee didn’t let any tricky questions on the Environmental Review defeat them, instead they sought out other experts in their school such as other students, school bursar as well as class teachers to help answer questions which demonstrates their resilience and team ethos. It was an absolute pleasure taking the time to read through the comments on your Environmental Review and gain insight into the rich discussion that occurred whilst completing it. We admire your commitment, demonstrated by tackling areas where you scored lowest in the Environmental Review as well as reflecting on your previous experience as an Eco-School. This shows you have an ambitious and assured Eco-Committee, which has no doubt inspired others with their work.
Your Action Plan shows that your Eco-Committee have carefully considered how they can involve their entire school in their planned Eco-Schools’ activities to achieve maximum impacts and raise awareness amongst their school community. We love the variety of activities that you and your Eco-Committee have included in the Action Plan. This will no doubt support multi-disciplinary skills and shows how integrated environmentalism is in your school.
Your Curriculum Link examples are imaginative, practical and fun, making environmental education accessible and engaging, well done! It’s clear that you have embedded environmental issues into your curriculum with great enthusiasm and these issues are being used to enrich learning in your school, whilst engaging young people in important issues. It was great to see the uploaded example of your classroom planning as well as the fantastic work completed by your students. It shows a clear commitment to ensuring your pupils get engaging environmental education. Great work by all involved!
You have placed a lot of emphasis on informing as many members of your school community as possible in your Eco-Schools work and this is a strength of your application. Getting involved with organisations and events such as the Denby Dale Eco-Fest as well as Kirklees Waste and Recycling are great examples of collaboration. Your ability and willingness to partnership is impressive! We’ll need this approach to fight the impacts of climate change in the future!
Your uploaded Eco-Board helped to bring your Eco-Schools application to life – it’s a real and unique celebration of your eco-activity that will increase engagement from your school community. Your greatest success is a brilliant achievement. It is amazing that you have been able to make brilliant progress in all of your focus topics with great support from your wider school community, educating and bringing everyone together for a shared goal. It’s clearly something that pupils will be proud of and leaves a great legacy to build upon.
Time and managing progress are common challenges, especially within smaller schools such as yours. It creates a pressure and takes resilience to keep going. With this context, your achievements are even greater and we feel lucky that you’ve committed to our programme and delivered the achievements that you have. This is a big achievement. We love your collaborative approach to creating three beautiful Eco-Codes, this approach has allowed young people to take ownership and create final codes that will be treasured by everyone at your school.
The design of your Eco-Codes are absolutely fantastic and all involved should be very proud of their achievements. We love that you were able to use ‘Eco-Denby’ for your acrostic Eco-Code. Overall, this is a terrific application. Everyone at Denby First School should be proud of the Green Team and the amazing and inspiring work that they’ve delivered this year.
You’re more than worthy of your Eco-Schools Green Flag. Congratulations!
Our Eco-team have delivered an assembly to thank all the children for their involvement in Eco-schools 2022 - 2023. Without all your hard work throughout the year this award would not have been possible. Well done everyone.
Please click here to see the assembly powerpoint presentation.
Green Flag award and Just One Tree
As a thank you gift, Eco-Schools and Just One Tree are planting a tree for every school that achieves a Green Flag.
During the next rainy season, our seedling will be transported to its new home where it will remove up to 308 kgs of carbon from the atmosphere during its lifetime.
You can find more information about Just One Tree at; https://www.justonetree.life/
RHS School Gardening Awards Level 3
We are also very pleased to achieve this award and a £50 garden centre gift card for your work on our school grounds. Well done for all your gardening work.
Environmental Review 2023/2024
Watch out for this year’s Environmental Review – it will be in a classroom near you very soon.
Next meeting
Our Eco-team 2023/2024 Action Plan meeting is booked in on Wednesday 18th October 2023.
July 2023
Marine
Class 2 went on a river walk with Dave Wilde our Parish Council Countryside and his apprentice and Friends of the River Dearne as part of their science and local history lessons. They carried out a litter pick and looked at creatures in our local waterways. They also found the remains of possibly the oldest surviving mill in Yorkshire at Upper Stephen Wood.
Eco-Schools 2023 Application
We will soon be submitting our Green Flag Application for 2023. Watch this space!
June 2023
School Grounds
We had our last ‘GROW to School’ session of the school year on Wednesday 21st June with Vashti. Attached are our summer bed plans. Lisa, our Cook in Charge has been incredibly keen to use our vegetables and has recently served lettuce and broad beans from the garden. We currently have our eye on the flowering courgettes and ripening strawberries. Children from all classes are watering the beds daily using water we have saved in school.
Energy
The Eco-team have had three fantastic sessions working with Sue Abbott from Energy Heroes learning about how to save Energy. The Eco-team produced a booklet and organised stalls to communicate their energy savings message to our school community. The stalls exhibited their Energy Saving Top Tips booklets, their Eco-work in school, a pledge writing tree and Sue’s Energy Heroes work. If you didn’t manage to get a copy of the booklet just let us know.
May 2023
Links with Other Schools
Aspiring Schools Eco-Event at Scissett Middle School
Some of our Eco-team had the opportunity to attend an Aspiring Schools Eco-event at Scissett Middle School on 22nd May 2023.
The event included;
A welcome and introduction to the event from Denby Dale Parish Council.
Presentation by hosts Scissett Middle and tour of their Eco-schools work.
Delegates browsed school displays.
Practical Activity by Eco-Hub: Each delegate had the chance to create a leaf-printed tote bag.
Presentation by Karen Rispin, Kirklees Energy and Climate Change Project Office.
Our Eco-team found the event valuable for lots of different reasons such as meeting other Eco-teams, getting ideas for our own Eco-work (we enjoyed seeing Scissett Middle School’s wormery up and running) and providing other schools with ideas we have already put into place (such as reusing waste water and attaching their water butt to guttering).
The three girls were a credit to our school. Well done.
Biodiversity and School Grounds
Thank you!
Many thanks you to all the families who are supporting our Eco-schools efforts by helping us in the work we are doing. It wouldn’t be the same without you.
Our oxygenating pond plants are starting to grow. Class 2 recently found lots of life in the water including many tadpoles but unfortunately we do have algae on the pond’s surface. While we wait for the plants to grow some more, we have added barley straw to reduce the algae and have manually taken some off too.
Thank you to Lisa our Cook for bringing in extra seeds and strawberry plants for us to plant.
Thank you also to our Caretaker – Stuart; during the half term holidays Stuart has been watering our vegetables.
Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Award
Congratulations to Denby, we have been awarded a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Award recognising the fantastic things we are doing to support biodiversity and our school grounds. Some of the work that has been recognised is;
Putting in a pond
Planting a tree
Improving our raised beds to produce our own food
Using peat-free compost and manure in our beds
Adding logs by the pond (we can take more if anyone has any spare!)
Letting our grass grow longer in some areas
Fitting a water butt
Using left over water to water our plants
Providing food for wildlife through our plants
Working with Kirklees recycling
Fitting a bird house.
We are also very excited to report that we have blue tits nesting in our new bird box.
School Grounds
Pea and bean family, beet family, cucumber family and cabbage, carrot and onion family beds were all weeded using hoes, watered and mulched to stop water evaporating using grass raked up from the field.
Some of last year’s broccoli florets were picked and they were sent in to cook. The older plants were left in as they might produce another crop.
Pumpkin, courgette, leek and more strawberry plants were planted, watered and labelled. Potatoes were mounded up to make more space for them to grow.
Children also dug up the pants or cotton planted at the last GROW session and completed their sheets. Many of the pieces of cotton had changed or decomposed showing good soil biodiversity.
Lisa our cook is really keen to use our produce and the Eco-team helped Lisa pick the rhubarb from our garden during their playtime.
March 2023
Biodiversity and School Grounds
The children have been very excited as they have spotted lots of frogspawn in our pond.
The Eco-team helped Chris put up the lovely bird box we had been made and donated by Arielle’s grandad. Watch this space (or bird box – quietly!).
Grow
All the children worked with Vashti from GROW on our spring planting last week and you can see our school bed plan below detailing what we have planted.
Plant Your Pants
https://www.countrytrust.org.uk/news/save-our-soil
Would you believe it? Class 2 really did plant pants!
Thank you to Mrs Osbourne for suggesting this activity for us. Children have been planting cotton in our soil to see how healthy the soil is. The idea is we dig up our cotton in 8 weeks’ time and if it has started to disintegrate it is because our soil is healthy. This is something we could do each year to see if we are improving the health of our soil and biodiversity in our school grounds.
Here is one of our worksheets completed so far;
Marine
Kirklees Waste and Recycling
Thank you so much to Stacy and Faz from Kirklees Waste and Recycling who presented a whole school assembly on Wednesday 8th March 2023 as part of our Marine topic. Everybody learned something. Did you know a drinks can takes 100 years to decompose but can be recycled and used again in as little as 60 days?
Class 2 spent time looking at recycling more closely with Stacy, Faz and our Eco-Governor Mrs Donaghey. They had piles of waste to sort and lots of thoughtful conversations about how to recycle each piece before playing a special Kirklees recycling educational board game.
Did you know that disposable coffee cups aren’t recyclable as they are made of plastic and cardboard or that you can recycle aerosol cans in your green bin?
New library books from Denby Dale Lions
We had a visit from David Absolon from the Denby Dale Lions. The Denby Dale Lions are keen to support climate sustainability in our schools and community so they brought us some environmental children’s books. The Eco-team shared the books with the school on World Book Day and teachers and children enjoyed reading them. Mrs Gaunt has now set up a new Environmental Section in the school library so children can borrow these books and take them home to read. We have also added a list of children's environmental books to our Amazon Wish List should you wish to support us.
The seven books are part of the Wild Tribe Heroes series written by Ellie Jackson and illustrated by Liz Oldmeadow and Laura Callwood. They are fiction books with non-fiction pages at the back so you can see how you can help the environment. You can find out more about the books here; https://wildtribeheroes.com/
Thank you, Denby Dale Lions.
School grounds and biodiversity
Well done to our volunteers who have started to prepare our raised beds ready for our GROW sessions. They have made a fantastic difference already having added our donated manure (thank you Leo and Zac’s dad!) and the compost we had bought with our funding.
Arielle’s Grandad has also donated a fantastic blue bird box he has made for our school grounds. We just need to put it up now!
When Spring has sprung and plants start growing, we will also be asking our Gardeners to leave a border around our school field when mowing the grass. This means the grass can grow longer supporting creatures and plants that like to live and grow there. This will also provide a creature motorway around the border of our school.
February Funding
Great news! Denby Dale Parish Council have approved our funding application for this year’s Eco-schools work including funding; an extra GROW session, compost, some oxygenating pond plants and improvements to our raised bed area.
January 2023
The Eco-team delivered this year’s action plan to the whole school and our visitors, Dave Wilde and Mrs Donaghey our Eco-schools Governor. Attached is the Eco-team’s PowerPoint presentation. The whole school community did a marvellous job last year and were keen to take on more Eco-schools work for the coming year.
Biodiversity
As part of our biodiversity topic we wanted to plant a tree to encourage animals, birds and insects to make their home in our school grounds. We wanted to be part of the Queen’s Green Canopy Project but we couldn’t take the amount of trees they were offering. Instead we chose to plant our own tree to commemorate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee. One of our parents very kindly acquired a tree for us through a local Landscape Gardeners who then planted the tree for us.
After our action plan assembly the whole school braved the rain outside to watch Mrs Wagstaff and children to put a plaque by the tree to celebrate the Queen.
December 2022
Our Action plan
The Eco-team had a meeting in November with Dave Wilde (Parish Council Countryside Officer), Mrs Ackroyd, Mrs Wagstaff and one of our Governors, Mrs Donaghey. At the meeting we;
Welcomed Sam to his first meeting.
Celebrated and enjoyed our Green Flag award feedback from July.
Dave handed out certificates to our Eco-team.
Mrs Donaghey agreed to be our Eco-schools Governor.
We decided on our new action plan.
We are very pleased that Mrs Donaghey has accepted our offer of being our Eco-schools Governor. We look forward to working with her.
After the meeting Joe and Noah wrote up our new Action Plan and here it is:
November 2022
Saturday November 12th 2022
Here are some of our Eco-fest posters. Can you spot yours?
This Saturday 12th November, the Climate Emergency Working Group of Denby Dale Parish Council are holding an Eco-Fest. The Eco-Fest is in support of COP27 and some of our children will have their posters displayed showing the messages they want adults to hear.
October 2022
Environmental review 2022 / 2023
Well done to all the children in school. You have completed the environmental review for 2022/2023. From here we will decide on our action plan for this year.
Click here to see our Environmental Review.
September 2022
Welcome
Welcome to Sam in Year 1, our newest member of the Eco-team.
Our first meeting of this academic year with Dave Wilde was rescheduled from Wednesday 19th October to Wednesday 9th November.
Biodiversity
The children in school have been excited about the bumper crop of apples on our trees this year. Lisa our Cook enthusiastically offered to make the most of them as part of the children’s school lunches. One child suggested apple crumble but we shall see what she produces.
Lisa had done her research and provided these interesting facts for the children whilst they were picking the apples;
Did you know apples are full of fibre and antioxidants?
An antioxidant is a man-made or natural substance which may prevent cell damage/ disease.
They can also improve brain health.
Thank you Lisa.
Apple Crumble
Pond Refurbishment
Last year as part of our biodiversity Eco-topic we raised the funding to have our pond lined. Last week Gordon and Chris upgraded our pond and it is beginning to look fantastic. Next, we need oxygenating plants and perhaps a little wildlife to help it grow into a diverse habitat.
We need you!
Either, if you have a pond and can spare some oxygenating plants or even a newt or frog, we would love you to bring them in on Wednesday morning (21st September). Chris will be putting them in after 10.30am.
Or (you can do both) if you have time/ expertise/ interest we would appreciate some support in the long term to maintain our pond. If you are interested, please could you speak to the Eco-team (via Mrs Ackroyd).
July
Hooray! Well done everyone.
We were awarded the Eco-Schools Green Flag award that you can see flying at the top of our Eco-schools web page. Here is our school’s feedback;
Congratulations!!!
Fantastic work!
We are very pleased to tell you that you and your Eco-Committee at Denby First School have been awarded an Eco-Schools Green Flag.
We reviewed your application and noted the following:
We love your democratic and fair approach to appointing Eco-Committee members. It’s great to see that other pupils played a part in the process. It was really great to read how your Environmental Review provided the basis for the projects in your Action Plan. It demonstrates a reflective and considered approach to your Eco-Schools work, this is a great skill that many adults can learn from!
It was wonderful to see how completing your Environmental Review helped your Eco-Committee to spot gaps in your school's existing environmental activity. But equally important is that it helped you to recognise the great work that you were already doing. This helps to keep up the good activity whilst making you feel empowered to do different things. We love this!
We love the range of activities that you and your Eco-Committee planned for delivery. You’ve clearly embedded the ethos of the Eco-Schools programme far and wide in your school! We have loved hearing about your involvement with the Denby Dale Parish Council, Friends of the River Dearne and the Denby Village Conservation Group. We love that your pupils have taken their great work beyond the school gates and into their homes and local community. This is a very challenging aspect of the Eco-Schools programme, so your Eco-Committee should be very proud of their successes in this area!
Well done to Ida who has benefited from being part of the Eco-Team encouraging others to take care of the environment - Well done! The parent quote is a great testament to the work that you are doing with your Eco-Committee, that they are taking their Eco-Schools work home with them and getting their families on board is something to be proud of!
I hope you and your Eco-Committee take great pride in your achievements, everyone involved should be incredibly proud!
Your Eco-Code is really smart and concise. It's a great message and its punchy nature will definitely help it be processed by everyone passing by your Eco-Board.
Congratulations to everyone for the great work you have managed to do, earning your Green Flag. You should all be very proud of your work and the application you have submitted!
Click here to view the press release we put in our September newsletter.
Water
After the Eco-team launched our water saving poster competition, children throughout school took part in designing posters to encourage us to turn off taps to save water.
Our water saving posters winners were chosen and their posters have been displayed by sinks throughout school. A photo of our winners with their winning posters is below. We liked their clear messages to remember to turn off taps and eye catching designs. Well done!
Water Monitors
Children throughout school have begun their roles as water monitors, making sure that at lunchtime taps are turned off and that our vegetables have been watered using lunchtime waste water. The Eco-team have been super role models and organised the role. Some children have even let us know they have turned off taps that have been left on when they use the facilities.
Big Plastic Count Letters to Kirklees Council
Class 2 and Class 3 have followed up our highly successful Big Plastic Count with persuasive letters that have been sent to Will Simpson. Will is a local councillor with an interest in the environment. The children were concerned that by 2040 single use plastics may have doubled and would like to government to reduce their targets.
If you would like to continue to support reducing single use plastics in our community see more information here on Plastic Free July from Denby Dale Parish Council.
Denby’s Eco-code
All of Class 2 developed our Eco-code for the school. Class 2 based the code on their involvement in Eco-schools this year and what they thought was important. Here are a few of our Eco-code posters. Well done Class 2, you had fantastic ideas and language.
Here is a link to our July newsletter sent out to families.
June
Water
As part of our Water topic, the Eco-team talked to the school about how to save water and why it was important. The Eco-team launched a poster competition to encourage children to turn taps off in school. They also talked to the children about the new role of water monitors in school. A link to their PPT is here.
May
The Big Plastic Count
A huge well done to everyone who took part in the Big Plastic Count Monday 16th June to Sunday 22nd June. We have been super impressed with the enthusiasm for this project. We have sent you out a class link if you have a tally sheet with results to submit. Any problems just let us know. Here are some of your photos. Well done!
April
Marine
Miss Leijnse and Mrs Ackroyd are attending a meeting with Friends of the River Dearne on Tuesday 12th April to discuss and plan for some children to visit a local river. This will support our marine topic and support our school curriculum.
BioBlitz
On Saturday 2nd April between 10am and 4pm the Friends of River Dearne organised a Bioblitz along the River Dearne. They were based in a field in Denby Dale, not far from Londis. The Friends had set up activities including identifying and counting insects found on the land and in the river. The field had been opened up especially for the event and meant that visitors had lovely, easy access to the river.
Children from school attended the event and were excited to look closely at biodiversity in a local river. Biodiversity and marine (all rivers lead to the sea) are topics our school have chosen for their action plan so this event was great for us.
Emrys demonstrated how to take a river sample. He used a ‘kick sample’ by walking in the river to disturb the water and then tipped his sample into a tray. The children found lots of insects including magnificent mayfly larvae and caddisfly larvae with and without their cases. The water looked clear and they found a good number of insects.
Under an Alder tree Joe had an exciting discovery of many blue Alder leaf beetles (they really were a beautiful blue colour). The experts on hand offered support and information to help identify the insects.
Other activities were also on offer including printing in clay using natural materials.
This was a super event. The sun shone and the children had great fun. We look forward to following up this work in summer science lessons and as part of eco Schools.
March
Mrs Ackroyd and Mrs Hirst supported the Eco-team by looking at the finances for the plans and completed the Eco-schools support fund application for the Parish Council. This had to be applied for by the end of March.
Our Eco-schools support fund application was approved on 16th March 2022. Hooray!
Biodiversity
Mrs Ackroyd and Mrs Hirst found out that it was difficult to contact the providers of the wildflowers for planting in the school grounds. When they did speak to them the providers thought we should plant them in Autumn. We then realised there was no water in our school pond because there was a problem with the liner.
The Eco-team thought we should make sure the pond was working properly before buying wildflowers as they knew ponds are a great way of encouraging biodiversity into our school grounds.
Wildflower areas in Denby - Biodiversity
The Denby Village Conservation Group asked our Eco-team to support them in asking our school community where they would like to see wildflowers planting in our village. The Eco-team agreed on a letter to send to our school community asking for support for their ideas as to where these should be.
Here is the letter we sent out.
February
The Eco-team delivered a super presentation they had planned explaining the results of the environmental review that all the classes completed. The team showed the children how we chose our school priorities of marine, water and biodiversity. They also told children about how they were going to start work on the plan and how our school community could get involved.
You can see a copy of their presentation here.
Eco-team ‘Water Workshop’ with Dave Wilde.
The Eco-team met with Dave Wilde for a water workshop on February 18th. The objectives for the workshop were to:
Make children aware of the importance and worldwide scarcity of water as a resource.
To link our actions to implications for developing nations.
To give children practical ideas of what they could do at home/school to save water and therefore money.
Now the Eco-team have met with Mrs Hirst and with Dave Wilde they need to plan how we are going to save water in school. The Eco-team will need to enlist the help of the school to do this. To organise this our next meeting is planned for Wednesday 27th April at 1pm.
January
Since the last meeting the Eco-team have talked to the children in their classes and with their help completed an environmental review of the school. At their second Eco-School committee meeting on Friday 10th December the team discussed their findings with Dave Wilde who supported the team to develop an Eco-school Action Plan.
You can see a copy of our school Action Plan here. Our minutes from previous meetings can be viewed by clicking the link above.
The Action Plan and minutes from the meeting are also on our notice board outside school.
Here is a link to our January 2022 newsletter
October
On Friday 21st October 2021 our newly formed Eco School committee had their first Eco School’s meeting. At the meeting Denby Dale Parish Council Countryside officer Dave Wilde welcomed the children into their new roles and introduced the Eco Schools award.
Watch out for more information.
