Crofty Eco Council

Our Trust Eco-Council works within the framework of the 8 United Nations Sustainability Heroes to pledge action that will result in increasing sustainable approaches both within and outside the school day.  Their ongoing interactions with a range of external agencies not only enriches their education and understanding of the current climate crisis and possible responses but also provides opportunities for them to consider green career pathways.

The focus for 2024/25 will be Green Careers.

A summary of the 2024/25 School Year

 It was an extremely busy and productive year for the Eco-council; our focus for the year was Biodiversity and Natural Habitats.

During our first meeting, we reminded ourselves of the eight pledges that we made last year, and we shared some ideas about how our schools are implementing these pledges. We discussed how biodiversity is our real focus for this year, how we will be looking at local habitats and how we can take good care of them but also thinking about how we can encourage others to take care of them too. We decided that our annual summit this year will be forest school themed and would be held at Trannack School later in the year.

At our next meeting, it was lovely to hear that everyone had got off to a good start; Godolphin School shared the work of their eco club who had been busy planting bulbs and picking up leaves in their grounds, Halwin School have been talking about different types of waste and thinking about sustainability projects, Portreath School shared that one of the classes had been planting some new trees on the school grounds, Rosemellin School spoke about their forest school and were looking at wildlife, bird feeders and their trees and Illogan School told us about how in Geography, some of their learning had been about climate change and the impact it has on different biomes. Mrs Andres shared a presentation about re-wilding and how we may be able to do this in some areas of our schools.

In January, the Eco Council took part in a very fun trip to Paradise Park. We spent the day learning about and meeting the red squirrels, otters, penguins, and lots of local Cornish birds. We took part in a fun and interactive workshop where we learned about local wildlife and their habitats and how we can help protect them.

During our final official meeting of the year, we discussed the new law around food waste regulations and how all our schools now must separate food waste from the general waste and recycling. The schools all agreed that this is a positive change – Rosemellin School told us that they were surprised at how much food waste they have, but it is working very well. Lots of the schools online have been busy identifying areas for their rewilding places around the school. Some schools had already done some work to plant some seeds / flowers.

We discussed building our own Crofty charter for biodiversity, the pupils had lots of example ideas how can achieve this, these included: respect biodiversity, creating rewilding areas and taking care of bees.

Through chat, we shared lots of great ideas including: Creating hedgehog houses and / or bug hotels, introducing wetland areas, providing the schools with bird feeders, asking our grounds maintenance teams to introduce ‘No Mow May’!, encourage people to stick to paths when in ‘wildlife protection zones’, leaving hedges to grow naturally, celebrate wildlife appreciation day, create wildlife ‘roadways’, we could supply bird baths, introduce compost areas, take part in regular litter picks and to introduce fruit and vegetable beds.

Finally, to end a very busy year, our annual Eco Summit 2025 was held at Trannack School. It was a wonderful day to celebrate the hard work and thank the pupils for their hard work and dedication this year. The pupils went on a foraging walk around the grounds of Trannack where they identified edible plants and berries. Chartwells attended and provided us with a very delicious BBQ for lunch; the pupils then took part in some den building and finished the day with a fascinating and interactive talk from Ben’s Bee’s and Tree’s – a local company who specialise in bee removal. Ben is very passionate about the preservation of bees and gave the children a fascinating and very interactive lesson on bees, he even brought a hive along, in small groups all the pupils were able to look at the hive closely. We have a video that we will be sharing with everyone soon.

Trust Eco Council – Minutes 30th April 2025