The Juniors at Burgess Hill School for Girls spent a week being “green” during their ‘Girls Go Green’ week.
On Monday 3rd October, a group of eager girls donned tabards and set out with litter-picking sticks to collect rubbish that had blown into bushes and hedges around the Junior School. Eco Committee pupil, Isobel Dyson, Year 3, said “We are very lucky to have such a clean and tidy school, but sometimes rubbish gets into tricky places”.
Mr Dunsby from www.simplyfreesolar.co.uk came to talk to the Infant classes about renewable energy on Tuesday. “The girls loved looking at the solar panels” said Mrs Azhar, the Key Stage 1 Coordinator.
All Junior pupils dressed in green to raise awareness of eco issues and managed to raise £184.93 for Cool Earth (www.coolearth.org). This enabled the School to “buy” over 3 acres of the Peruvian rainforest in South America which will help to combat illegal deforestation and logging.
The Juniors celebrated Harvest Festival on Wednesday and took time to reflect on the many things that they took for granted. This year, the Junior School chose to support the local charity, Knowles Tooth (www.familysupportwork.org.uk/knowles-tooth-centre). The staff and students felt it was overwhelming to learn that there are local families in Sussex whose children had not seen the sea and that some struggle to put food on the table.
Mrs Pearson, Deputy Head of the Junior School said, “I would like to take this opportunity to thank you (parents and pupils) for your support; Knowles Tooth remarked that they had never seen such a generous Harvest donation.”
Thursday saw the arrival of two visitors; Mr Berry from Better Tomorrows and Mr Street from South East Water.
Mr Berry talked to the girls from Years 5 to 8 about the national ‘Love Food, Hate Waste’ initiative to combat food waste (www.lovefoodhatewaste.com). He then conducted a series of hands-on activities with our Infant classes where they had to sort ‘clean’ litter!
Mr Street spoke to our Year 3 and 4 girls about the importance of not wasting water. The girls were delighted to take home their ‘Sally Shower Challenge’ egg timers in order to stick to a four minute shower.
Girls from Reception to Year 6 enjoyed a range of creative eco-inspired projects in their Art or Design and Technology lessons throughout the week, culminating in the Year 6 Eco Fashion Show on Friday afternoon.
The Penguins (Reception class) made a range of useful objects out of ‘junk’ including: a cake tin, a play castle for a child’s toy, a pencil pot organiser and a jewellery box.
Year 1 learnt how old windmills and modern wind turbines use wind energy and went on a trip to visit West Blatchington windmill.
Year 3 made posters out of recycled materials to show how to care for their teeth as part of their Science topic.
‘Girls Go Green’ week was inspired by Jonathon Porritt’s address to the Girls’ Schools Association schools in 2008, where he encouraged girls and staff to devise ‘global caring’ action plans. Consequently, GSA schools around the country began devising an impressive range of eco-friendly activities in order to raise awareness of environmental issues and the importance of sustainable development.