Our P5s enjoyed a fantastic performance by the Lyric Theatre called ‘Waste Busters’ this morning. The play used music and drama to raise awareness of littering and plastic pollution. It has a powerful message and tied into our work as an Eco School. A big thank you to the team from the Lyric Theatre in Belfast.
Our HPS Eco Committee have had a very full week this week. Yesterday they gave a presentation to both the P1-3 and P4-7 assemblies on our Eco topic of Marine Life and the actions we are taking towards this topic as a school. They launched a campaign to reduce our plastic waste and introduced Waste Free Wednesdays. We would like to minimise single use plastics and encourage each other to use re-usable containers. The Eco committee will come round on Wednesdays and give out eco tokens that classes are using mostly reusable containers. The class with the most tokens by Easter will get a special prize! Today they met with Mrs Robertson, from our Board of Governors, to update her on all the work we are doing towards our Eco topics. Mrs Robertson thanked the committee for all their hard work for our school community.
This week is Intergenerational Week. As part of it P4 Room 14 had a lovely afternoon planting wildflower seeds with a little help from our friends are Newcroft Lodge Care Home. The children and residents really enjoyed working together scattering the seeds and watering the soil. We finished with some juice and biscuits in the dining hall. The wildflower bank is part of our HPS Goes Wild Project and we hope it will encourage lots of pollinators to come and make their home in our school.
P4 had a fantastic trip to the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre at the Oxford Island Nature Reserve. They enjoyed pond dipping, bird watching and a minibeast hunt in the woods.
As part of our HPS Goes Wild Project we have planted five apple trees to our school grounds. Two of these are a donation from The Conservation Volunteers and the remaining three were purchased with the Pollinator’s Grant we received from Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful. These trees are a mix of cooking apples and eating apples. They will encourage local pollinators to come and make their home in our school grounds. P4 Room 6 assisted The Conservation Volunteers in planting them last Monday. They had a really good time and learned more about the role of trees in reducing our carbon footprint.
As the cold weather draws in the boys and girls in Eco Club are concerned about the food supply for some of our local birds. Using pinecones, string, lard and seeds they had great fun making bird feeders and hanging them in our school grounds.
P4 have enjoyed lots of opportunities for Outdoor Learning this term. Today we consolidated telling the time one hour earlier and one hour later by creating our own clocks in the playground. Here are some photos. Outdoor learning is our current major topic as an Eco School.
