Banbury area school achieves eco-school status

The Eco-Schools programme encourages schools to embark on a meaningful path towards improving the environment in both the school and the local community while at the same time having a life-long positive impact on the lives of young people and their families.

The Eco-Schools Green Flag is an internationally recognised award for excellence in environmental action and learning.

To achieve the green award from Eco-Schools, Sibford School had to focus on five areas in depth and continue to monitor them over time. This saw the school reporting on their activities, both evaluating what had been done and creating an action plan for the future.

Rachel Bee, the Eco Group Coordinator at Sibford, said: “The eco group has been meeting half termly for the last couple of years to try to make our school as environmentally friendly and aware as we can.

"We have created our ornithology group, further developed our food waste and composting. We have designed and sold reusable water bottles making a huge cost saving to both the monetary and physical cost of using plastic water bottles in school. “

"Our junior school have continued to develop the pond and forest school area as well as building a bug hotel of Hilton-esque proportions. Other initiatives at Sibford include collecting ink cartridges, batteries and crisp packets to be recycled.”

Toby Spence, head of Sibford School, added: "I’m delighted that after a lot of hard work, we have been recognised with an Eco-Schools ‘Green flag’.

"This has very much been a whole school project and I would like to pass on a huge ‘well done’ to all involved. Maintaining sustainability and climate change awareness and action is at the heart of the Sibford community.”

Sibford School is a co-educational, independent school for pupils from nursery, right through to sixth form. A family school which is built upon outstanding pastoral care and a values-based approach to education, Sibford offers small class sizes and excellent support to all its pupils.

For more information about Sibford School visit their website at www.sibfordschool.co.uk/explore to virtually explore the school.