Double Decade Gold award for King’s School
A small boarding and day primary school with less than a hundred pupils the school has hosted events such as the Big Green Day and Earth Day inviting local schools and teachers to participate in a series of outdoor learning activities such as water testing
King’s School in Nottingham Road was delighted to recently find out that they are only one of three schools nationally to achieve their WESSA Eco-School Double Decade Gold award for 2016.
The school has been striving for environmental excellence for over 14 years and have submitted an Eco-School portfolio consistently each year.
A small boarding and day primary school with less than a hundred pupils the school has hosted events such as the Big Green Day and Earth Day inviting local schools and teachers to participate in a series of outdoor learning activities such as water testing, solar cooking, tree planting and habitat games.
Over the years the school has built an Outdoor Classroom which showcases a variety of basic alternative building techniques such as straw-bale, cordwood, wattle and daub and recycled bottles.
The children recently built a cob (mud and straw) base for a pizza oven and have two low fuel rocket stoves, a thriving food garden as well as established medicinal herbs and fruit trees. Removal of invasive tree species such as bugweed, wattle trees and brambles has been an on-going challenge and the school has used man-power and pigs to fend off these difficult species.
Regular bird watching, documenting of a local wetland, food gardening, tree climbing, water audits, outings to local caves to see Bushman paintings, recycled fashion and wire car building are just some of the exciting activities the children and teachers have enjoyed.
Environmental education is strongly incorporated into the daily curriculum and principal Tanya Mitchell (who has a Masters in Biochemistry from Stellenbosch University) regularly leads children on expeditions into the wilder areas of the school grounds documenting wildlife and bird species as well as to appreciate the delights of nature.
The school is partnered with the Midlands Meander Education Project, Water Explorers and SAEON (South African Environmental Observation Network) and utilizes these connections to spread knowledge and share information.
Renowned as a place of learning and environmental appreciation the school’s motto is: Quant Je Puis (Do Your Best) and they can be very proud of their consistent award achievements and look forward to their environmental endeavours in 2017.
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