Eco-friendly school
Our vision and affinity with nature
At the Hill Primary School, we are committed to educating our children about environmental concerns and the importance of living sustainably. We recognise our responsibility to ensure that pupils have the necessary skills and knowledge to understand environmental concerns so that they can apply this to their lives and adopt an eco-friendly lifestyle.
We encourage both pupils and staff to think about the environment and how their actions will impact their local surroundings, as well as the global environment. Staff have received climate change training from the United Nations and are kept well informed with Reading's Climate Change Strategy, which has committed the town to become carbon zero by 2050.
Solar panels were installed by Reading Borough Council to increase renewable energy generation and reduce carbon emissions across the borough. We also installed a display board to monitor the panel and teach the children about renewable energy. To date, our solar panels have saved 67.52 tonnes of carbon dioxide since installation. We are currently looking at options to install more solar panels to increase the amount of renewable energy used by the school and mitigate our carbon footprint.
We are fortunate to have a small woodland which is teeming with wildlife. Our school grounds include a large field, a vegetable garden and a large pond. All of our pupils celebrate their affinity with nature with opportunities for outdoor learning. We host an after school Gardening Club for those who wish to be more green-fingered and each classroom has a welly box so we are always ready to immerse our learning in the outdoors.
Our pupils participate in specific lessons and regular discussions about sustainability and changes to our climate. We wish to empower our children with emotional literacy and resilience to cope in a changing world.
Eco Council
It is very important that our pupils have a sense of ownership and responsibility regarding changes to our planet. Every class has an elected eco-representative, who is responsible for overseeing the sustainable approaches in the classroom such as recycling and conserving energy. Out Eco-Reps regularly attend Eco Council meetings to discuss and update our Action Plan and share their thoughts and feelings about sustainability at the school.
The Eco-Council, along with Year 4 and 5, visited Green Park wind turbine. The children learned that the blades are 35 metres long and the turbine weighs over 300 tonnes. 
Eco-School Bronze Award
We are an international Green Flag Award Eco-School. We are delighted to share that we have now achieved our Bronze Award.
The Echo-Schools programme empowers pupils, raises environmental awareness, improves the school environment and can lead to financial savings. The programme focuses on ten important environmental topics. They are:
- Biodiversity
- Energy
- Global Citizenship
- Healthy living
- Litter
- Marine systems
- School grounds
- Transport
- Waste
- Water systems
If you would like to get involved in the Eco-School programme by sharing your time, ideas or skills, please contact us directly.
Terracycle
Terracycle collects and recycles difficult to re-use items, such as crisp packets, pens and toys. In return charities reward schools with financial rewards. At school, we are a Terracycle point for L.O.L. toy packaging, Carex soap packaging and Kinder eggs toys. We also collect old pens that we take to a collection point at Micklands School.
Ecosia
Ecosia is an internet provider who donates 80% or more of its profits to planting trees around the world. On average every 48 searchers plants a tree. We use Ecosia as an extension to Google Chrome browsers on school computers. Why don't you add it to your search engine at home?
Gardening club
The gardening club gives children the chance to get their hands dirty. The school garden has strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries. The children have planted wildflowers on part of our feild to create a pollinator-friendly area for insects and we have a bug hotel. Thank you to Reading tyres who donated 30 tyres that we use as planters, Caversham Bridge Garden Centre who have donated plants and to the parents who support the club with time or donations.
