Our Aim
Our aim as Green Gorse representatives is to become an ‘Eco School’. This means enhancing all things environmental and sustainable at Boston Spa Academy, focussing closely at how we reduce our impact on the environment. We also want to be able to educate students in the importance of caring for the environment and how there are lots of small actions they can take at school, at home or in the community to become more environmentally friendly.
Our long-term plan is to use the allotment to educate students about healthy living, but to also teach them about sustainable food production.
This year we have worked hard to re-establish the school allotment, which had previously not been used for some time. We have been lucky to receive some generous donations, such as our second-hand shed from Clifford Council.
This year we have had some great harvests of kale and potatoes. We were able to showcase our organically grown potatoes at our Open Evening in September where we offered visitors a delicious sample of ‘patatas bravas’.
Can Challenge:
We have challenged students to collect aluminium cans to take them to a recycling point and raise money for Green Gorse.
So far we have recycled over 4000 cans.
Plastic Bottle Challenge:
The idea of this competition came from Ella. Our year 7s have been competing to collect the most bottles. These bottles will be taken to be recycled, rather then be added to the school’s general waste.
Litter Picks:
Green Gorse has carried out several litter picks to clean up the school site and surrounding area. This year we have been working had to become a ‘Hedgehog Friendly’ academy by working with Hedgehog SOS. Many of our students competed in the PICK4PRICKLES challenge and did a great job at cleaning up our communal school areas.
Christmas Recycled Decorations:
We have been busy making recycled Christmas decorations from all the bottle caps and bottles we have collected in our recycling campaigns.
No mow zones:
Several areas of the school grounds have been turned into ‘no mow’ zones (they are left unmown from March to October). This has provided an additional area for insects and small mammals to thrive, but it has also been wonderful to see rare wildflowers, such as the bee orchid, popping up.
Pond Garden:
We are working on turning the school pond area into a mindfulness garden as well as a pollinator garden. So far, we have cleared some of the beds and will be working on clearing the pond in the January. We were overjoyed to discover we have resident Smooth Newts in our pond, despite it having been left a little unattended for a while.
