Congratulations to Heddon Bush School for completing a successful silver Enviroschools holistic reflection recently. The day was led by four very confident and enthusiastic enviro leaders who shared their journey with the Enviroschools facilitation team.
Visitors from Environment Southland, Wendy McLachlan (Kindergartens South) and Board of Trustee members joined Heddon Bush School for this very special occasion. They were given a guided tour around the school to explore and hear about the amazing mahi that has been happening throughout the school over the last few years. The depth of knowledge and understanding around all the projects is clearly increasing and the community engagement is well established.
It was evident that the students are empowered to create change within the school and make a lasting difference towards a sustainable future. Highlights from the day included hearing about how students have created a native planting area from eco-sourced seeds and information panels for each of the native plant species that have been established.
Students consider what each of the Enviroschools Guiding Principles looks like in their school.
Students confidently talk about the mahi taking place in their school.
Students have a clear vision of what they are working towards.
This is how Heddon School explains why they can now confidently say they are a Silver Enviroschool:
Here at Heddon Bush we work creatively to bring our shared vision to life. We believe the silver statement is a comfortable fit at our school because we work as a whole school to make things happen. The ideas that our tamariki suggest are placed on our vision map and the Enviro leaders develop plans to put these ideas into action.
There is obvious sign that the guiding principles are woven into our everyday practises
Examples of this include:
Sustainable Communities: design and development of a native planting area, establishment of a tunnel house for growing and sharing kai, worm juice sold to support our sustainable journey.
Empowered Students: Strong and proactive Enviro group that is committed to long term sustainability practices, project design and development.
Learning for Sustainability: strong recycling practices within the school, native planting sites established, worm farm created, removal of pest species to encourage greater biodiversity.
Maori Perspectives: Creation and development of haka and Whakaongo Waiata, Maori values and traditions explored through our native planting programme.
Respect for Diversity for people and cultures. Exploration of our diverse cultures, shared kai events regularly, opportunities for our tamariki to share their cultural practices.
We have a sense of interrelatedness in terms of our community support and environment. We welcome the collaboration between our various community partners to share their knowledge with our tamariki.
Part of the action taken for their place involves tracking pests.
Our next steps are:
- Establishment of more native trees in our native planting area
- Tunnel house development
- Creation of atua signs and models for our native planting area
- Native plant information panels installed in our native planting area
- Establishment of our beehive
- Fruit trees and edible garden created
- Commitment to exploiting the breadth and depth of te reo and Mātauranga Māori
“We look forward to our environment becoming more vibrant and healthy as we continue our Enviroschools journey.” – Sarah Guise and the Enviro group at Heddon Bush School
The students and staff have mapped out the areas that they are happy with and those that they would like to work on. They have also built an understanding of the depth and breadth of Enviroschools across whole school life.