Welcome to the late Autumn issue of the Devon Schools Sustainability Bulletin. This edition has a special section about making the most of mud and soil in school. It also has some wonderful training and funding opportunities coming up this winter.
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Contents
News Muddy play Composting and gardening in school Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Training and events Funding
News
New Recycle Devon website for teachers
Visit zone.recycledevon.org, the exciting newly designed waste, recycling and composting website for teachers. The site features a wide range of videos and downloadable resources, designed to help staff and pupils in Devon incorporate the 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) into classroom teaching and the day-to-day life of their school.
There is something for everybody, whether you want to incorporate waste issues into literacy and maths lessons; run a whole-school campaign to earn your next Eco-Schools award; keep a lively Eco Team busy on a rainy day; or save money by reducing the amount of paper the school uses!
Free networking and training at teachers forum day
After the success of the first Growing Devon Schools Partnership (GDSP) forum, GDSP are bringing teachers together for another day of sharing experiences and outdoor lesson ideas on Thursday 20th Novemberat Growing Our Future, Okehampton College. Find out about the last Teacher Forum day hereand to book contact Polly Frost on pfrost@soilassociation.org or phone 07920 047 303.
Nominate your recycling heroes!
Do you know someone who goes that extra mile to reuse or recycle?The Recycle Devon Thank You Awards celebrate and recognise all those unsung heroes, individuals and groups who have helped to make Devon one of the top recycling counties in the country.
There are three school awards, for child, adult and class. Nominating is easy, simply complete the short form here. Closing date for entries is 28th November 2014 and all shortlisted nominees will be invited to attend an awards ceremony in January 2015 at County Hall in Exeter.
Become an Eco-Schools Ambasador
Applications are open to become an Eco-School Ambassador. These are inspirational flagship Eco-Schools that extend the ethos of Eco-Schools far beyond the school gates. They give support and guidance to other Eco-Schools and non Eco-Schools to encourage them to be sustainable and responsible schools.
Ambassador schools aim to fulfil a position of responsibility for two years. The role is undertaken by inspirational Green Flag schools who currently extend their support and commitment to sustainability and the wider community. The application deadline is the 15th December 2014. Find more details here.
Muddy places, soil and school
It's Autumn and this usually means cooler and wetter weather, but it doesn't have to mean an end to outdoor play. Embracing the Autumn and Winter weather, with appropriate waterproofs, wellies and thick socks, can bring a whole new dimension to being outdoors, including creating a fantastic space to explore the precious world beneath our feet! Whether that is playing freely with mud, or looking at the huge value and environmental concerns around soil, there is plenty to get stuck into.
Mud kitchens
Hands up everyone who remembers making potions from mud and plants in the garden! Mud kitchens are coming back into outdoor play and they can be as cheap and simple or as sophisticated as the resources you find to make them. Muddy Faces has a lovely resource on creating your own mud kitchen and links to books and stories that can inspire recipes and creations. If you are looking for a bespoke kitchen Earth Wrights Natural Playgrounds have a new design (see image on the right) that they will adapt and build in your school.
A wonderful feature of mud kitchens is that you let your imagination run wild with objects that have been found or bought from recycling centres, such as old sinks, pots and pans, ladles and funnels. There are also a wealth of things you can do with tubes and old plastic bottles to make water channels.
Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nature Detectives have put together a brilliant range of ideas of activities involving mud. Ranging from making mud creatures, to barefoot muddy toe walks, to looking for animal tracks and mud painting, each activity has a free instruction sheet on the Nature Detectives website.
Soil and school
If the Earth were an apple, the soil on which we depend for all our food would be represented by 1/32 of the peel. This is a beautiful activity to demonstrate how precious soil is to us. 2015 is the United Nations year of soil, and if you needed a reason, this is a great one to bring soil into your classroom.
Soil-Net.com is a free Internet resource for Key Stages 1-4 providing teachers and students with extensive curriculum-based information and lesson resources about soil. The American website Soils 4 Teachers also has a brilliant range of ideas and resources for learning about soil.
Composting and gardening in school
What to do with Autumn leaves
If you have trees around your school you will probably have autumn leaves building up a rustly layer around the playground. Leaves rot down more slowly than many other compostables, such as vegetable peelings, so it makes sense to compost them separately. Leaf compost, also known as leaf mold, takes about 2 years to make, however it is worth the wait as it is a great resource for adding organic matter to your garden, and is also good to use as a potting medium. Don't fill up your Hotbox with them, as this will tie up this specialist food waste equipment for 2 years. Leaves are best composted either in strong black bin bags tied at the top, or in a wire mesh enclosure as shown in the picture. More information can be found on the factsheet here.
If you would like to start composting in your school, in particular cooked food waste, do contact the school composting experts: Nicky Scott (nicky.scott@devon.gov.uk; 07919 467589) or Melissa Harvey (melissaharvey.dccn@gmail.com; 07732 396012) and look at the Compost School Special, which can be downloaded free here.
Things to do in your school garden this Autumn
As trees are dormant at this time of year, now is the time to plant fruit trees, so their roots settle in before they start to grow again in spring. The Fruit-full Schools project has lots of inspiring and practical information and resources for planting fruit trees and linking this work to the curriculum.
For wilder areas how about planting native trees to provide habitat and timber in years to come? The Woodland Trust is giving free tree packs to schools.
In your garden hopefully you will have some winter vegetables, such as cabbage, leeks and kale, to harvest. It is a good time to plant hardy broad beans, peas and garlic for a crop in spring and early summer. See the Garden Organic resources below for how to plant.
In case you didn't order yours last year, here is a reminder to get your free copy of the new Compost Curriculum Handbook. It is full of primary school curriculum linked activities learning about, and using, natures wonderful compost.
The session plans are divided into 'class' and 'eco group' activities for each month in the school year. Each session plan includes supporting information, new curriculum links and resources. There are also top tips, fun facts and compost quotes for each month! The whole resource is in a sturdy ring binder so each activity can be easily taken out for use and other activities can be added.
The handbook is free to Devon Schools; one copy per school; two for larger primaries (sorry not Torbay and Plymouth schools). To request your copy contact Heidi Diepold at recycle@devon.gov.uk or teachers in eligible schools can download it from the registration area on the website zone.recycledevon.org/composting.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Waste summit 2015
The Waste Summit is a free, popular, fast paced and thought provoking event aimed at Devon's secondary school students. The Summit explores waste within the wider sustainability agenda and brings students from different schools together for a range of curriculum supporting activities and discussion.
Bookings are now being taken for the 2015 event, which will be held at County Hall, Exeter on the 26th March 2015. For further details see the flyer or contact iain.stevens@devon.gov.uk or phone 01392 383586.
Happy waste-free Christmas
Christmas is the ideal time to introduce values around buying and wasting less and being creative with presents. Some ideas are:
Charity gifts: Many charities have a range of virtual gifts that can be bought for friends and family where the money goes towards aspects of their work. The website here has a good summary of some of the main charities.
Make recycled Christmas decorations. This website has some brilliant ideas, or you can make up your own.
Plan craft actvities that reuse resources and allow children to develop their skills to make presents for others. A couple of great ideas are paper beads and draught excluder snakes.
Waste Free Lunch Week
Devon’s third ‘Waste Free Lunch week’ is coming soon from the 2nd to the 6th March 2015. Free help and support is available to help you run a campaign to reduce waste from pupil’s packed lunches: Visits: book a waste educator to audit of waste produced by the school’s packed lunches with the children Resources: a ‘menu’ of activities and lesson plans can be downloaded from the website
Posters and stickers: register your interest by 6th February 2015 to receive a free promotional pack Competition: garden centre vouchers can be won by schools who run the most innovative and successful campaigns
Register your interest and book a packed lunch audit by emailing demelza.annison@resourcefutures.co.uk. Find out more here.
Don't waste it, WARPit
WARPit is an online exchange facility; it is a bit like ebay, but no money changes hands. Schools can sign up to claim resources (such as furniture, stationary, sports equipment etc) from other schools in Devon, or get rid of their unwanted items. That means they save money by not purchasing new items, but also save money on disposal costs. It's free to register, free to use and you get the items for free. Items recently added, are a laptop, a printer, screens and a filing cabinet. Devon schools (not Torbay or Plymouth) can register on this website or see the flyer for more information. Torbay schools can register here. Plymouth has not yet joined the scheme.
School skill share visits to inspire action
Teachers have the opportunity to learn and share practical ideas via a ‘skills share visit’. Contact us and we can facilitate a visit to a nearby school who is successfully composting and/ or recycling. Here you will meet teachers and pupils who run the schemes and gain practical ideas to implement back in your school. You can also apply for your expenses. Feedback from a recent visit included:
"Our Skills Share visit to South Molton Community College was extremely helpful. The members of staff we met provided us with a really useful insight into their composting and recycling practices. It was enlightening to see how with student involvement and staff support, effective waste management can be embedded into all working and learning practices within the school. All 3 of us who visited from Chulmleigh Community College left feeling very inspired and well informed and have been taking practical steps, since our visit, to start to improve our waste management. Excellent visit, time well spent!"
Free Growing Devon Schools Partnership teacher forum
In case you missed it above, Primary and secondary teachers, TA's and volunteers are invited to the second Growing Devon Schools Partnership (GDSP) networking and forum day on Thursday 20th November at Growing Our Future, Okehampton College.
The day will include presentations from primary and secondary teachers and practical workshops with lesson plans to take away. There will be cooking and gardening, as well as a discussion forum and outdoor lesson plan library. For more details and to book contact Polly Frost onpfrost@soilassociation.org or call 07920 047 303.
SEEd Webinars on Sustainability
SEEd continue to offer a series of online facilitated themed webinars for teachers on integrating sustainability into their practise. Join in and learn with other people from the comfort of your own computer!
Tuesday 25th November. 2pm. How do People and Technology Come Together for Sustainable School Building Design
Presented by Aleksandra (Sasha) NJAGULJ Sustainability Manager Bouygues UK Cost is £15 for the whole class. For more information on the webinars and to sign up visit the SEEd website.
Funding
Funding lists
Natural Connections has put together a useful list of potential funders for outdoor learning and sustainability projects in schools, along with links to supporting information about applying for funding. The information is available on the Growing Schools website.
Grants for Science Week activities
The British Science Association offers grants to eligible schools and organisations to help fund their British Science Week (BSW) events and activities. For details and how to apply visit their website here.
Grow Wild funding for wildflowers
Grow Wild is awarding funding of between£1,000 and £4,000 to community groups, including schools, that want to bring people together to transform a communal space by sowing and growing native plants. Visit their website here to find out how to apply.
Enterprise in schools grant
Devon County Council are inviting applications from state funded Secondary Schools and for Year 6 of Primary Schools across Devon, to join a competitive grant programme to fund enterprise education and the formation of strong links with businesses. They welcome innovative proposals, including joint bids between schools. Find out more here.
Cutting your wasteline grant
The next round of the Cutting Your Wasteline schools grant is coming up. Schools in Devon (including Torbay, but not Plymouth) can apply for up to £1,500 towards resources for schools to reduce their rubbish/ black bin bag waste. This can be:
Start or improve your Recycling system
Start or improve a composting system
Skills share visit (see Reduce, Reuse, Recycle section) to see successful composting and/or recycling in a nearby school.
Devon County Councillors are each allocated £40,000 to be used for funding community projects in their area. This is split into £25,000 to support capital projects (spending on significant assets that will have a life of many years) and £15,000 of revenue funding (spending on day-to-day items to run services, supplies and purchase of services). Interested organisations are advised to contact their County Councillor. To find out who that is see here.
Next bulletin...
The next bulletin is due to come out in January after the half term. If you have any case studies, news, ideas or resources relating to sustainability in schools that other teachers might be interested in, please send a short paragraph (up to 100 words) and a small picture to melissaharvey.dccn@gmail.com by Friday 2nd January.
Welcome to the late Autumn issue of the Devon Schools Sustainability Bulletin. This edition has a special section about making the most of mud and soil in school. It also has some wonderful training and funding opportunities coming up this winter.
News
Visit 
Do you know someone who goes that extra mile to reuse or recycle?
Applications are open to become an Eco-School Ambassador. These are inspirational flagship Eco-Schools that extend the ethos of Eco-Schools far beyond the school gates. They give support and guidance to other Eco-Schools and non Eco-Schools to encourage them to be sustainable and responsible schools.
Hands up everyone who remembers making potions from mud and plants in the garden! Mud kitchens are coming back into outdoor play and they can be as cheap and simple or as sophisticated as the resources you find to make them. Muddy Faces has a lovely 
links to books and stories that can inspire recipes and creations. If you are looking for a bespoke kitchen 
Nature Detectives have put together a brilliant range of ideas of activities involving mud. Ranging from making mud creatures, to barefoot muddy toe walks, to looking for animal tracks and mud painting, each activity has a free instruction sheet on the 
If the Earth were an 
If you have trees around your school you will probably have autumn leaves building up a rustly layer around the playground. Leaves rot down more slowly than many other compostables, such as vegetable peelings, so it makes sense to compost them separately. Leaf compost, also known as 
As trees are dormant at this time of year, now is the time to 
In your garden hopefully you will have some winter vegetables, such as cabbage, leeks and kale, to harvest. It is a good time to plant hardy broad beans, peas and garlic for a crop in spring and early summer. See the Garden Organic resources below for how to plant.
In case you didn't order yours last year, here is a reminder to get your free copy of the new 
allow children to develop their skills to make presents for others. A couple of great ideas are 
Devon’s third 
Teachers have the opportunity to learn and share practical ideas via a 
Grow Wild is awarding funding of between£1,000 and £4,000 to community groups, including schools, that want to bring people together to transform a communal space by sowing and growing native plants. Visit their website 
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