Newtown school rewarded with Green Flag status for environmental efforts

Penygloddfa Primary School pupils were rewarded with a Green Flag after completing the environmental education programme, Eco-Schools, within a year.

Year Six pupil Nathan Pearce, who is the school's eco chairperson, said: "I feel quite proud because we achieved the Green Flag Award. It was a lot of hard work, but it was worth it."

As part of their assessment, children at Penygloddfa Primary School learnt about food waste, littering and healthy living. They also got stuck in and cleaned up the school's pond area, started a wormery, sold plant food and used the money raised to fund other eco projects.

The eco-committee came up with an action plan with four areas that they wanted to improve in the school including healthy eating. They then set the school the challenge of eating as many different types of vegetables and fruit during the half-term. The class that ate the most diverse fruit and vegetables won a set of skipping ropes.

Year Five and Six teacher Glenn Thomas said: "The children have worked have incredibly hard.

"They had to do an environmental review at the start and the children had to answer questions about what the litter, cycling, biodiversity and healthy eating was like at the school.

"It's been difficult during the last two years to get the whole school involved because of Covid so Dosbarth Seren have been the drivers of it, but all the other classes have taken part in different activities."

Mr Thomas added: "They were delighted when they found out that they had been rewarded with a Green Flag."

The school's next step is to maintain their Green Flag status for a further two years before upgrading to a Platinum Award.

The programme is funded by the Welsh Government and is co-ordinated by Keep Wales Tidy.