At the end of last term Rob Parry from the Welsh Wildlife Trust came into to school to talk to our children about local wildlife and to ask for our helping in carrying out a survey of the wildlife in the Broadlands area. Thank you to all the children and families who have completed the garden survey.

This term the Eco Committee are going to be encouraging everyone at our school to put their 'Best Foot Forward' by walking or cycling to school. Every child in each class can earn a WOW (Walk or Wheel) point by either walking or cycling to school. Every week the Eco Committee member in each class will award a WOW point to the children in their class who walk or cycle and the class with the most points will win the weekly WOW award. At the end of the summer term the class who has won the most weekly awards will win an activity afternoon. Our new initiative will be launched in our celebration assembly on Friday 13th May. On your marks, get set, get walking and cycling!

Congratulations to Class Jones who were Maes Yr Haul's Healthy Heroes 2011. They are all well on their way to getting their 5 a day and celebrated in style with a fruit kebab and smoothie making workshop. A big thank you to Mrs Tandy and Mr Davies for helping Class Jones to celebrate in style with a mouth watering selection of fruits and smoothies. Fruit has nenver been such fun! We can all try to eat one of our 5 a day at play by bringing in a healthy snack from home our visiting our school's 'Wiggly Giggly' tuck shop.

On Tuesday 22nd March the Eco Committee meet with the Eco Schools assessor to share all the Eco work that we have been doing in our school. The Eco Committee took the assessors on a tour of our school to see Eco in action and they were impressed with not only the commitment and hard work carried out by the children on the Eco Committee but all the wonderful work everyone in our school is doing to keep taking those small steps to make a big difference!

As an Eco and Healthy School we know how important it is to try and eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day and the Eco Committee have come up with an idea to help us on our way to 5 day. We are launching a campaign to encourage you to 'Eat One Of Your 5 A Day At Play'. Eco Committee members will be giving green points to the children in their class who have a healthy snack at break (that includes you to teachers). At the end of each week the class who have had the most healthy snacks throughout the week will be presented with a certifictate in our celebration assembly to show that they are our healthy heroes! At the end of each half term the class with the most green points will receive the Golden Delicious Award which will be made from recycled materials of course.

This term one of our Eco actions is to reduce the amount of energy we are using in our school by switching off the lights when we are out of our class rooms. The Eco Committee will be setting up a 'Lighting Squad' that will be checking that lights are switched off when the class is out. At the end of the term we will be presenting the Golden Lightbulb award to the class that always makes sure that they switch off when they are out.

At Maes Yr Haul Primary we are always thinking of ways we can reduce, reuse and recycle. As the new half term begins we would like to ask you, our famillies and friends to help us with our eco actions. When you send any letters or dinner money into school if you have any old envelopes could you use them instead of a new envelope? Working together we can all take small steps to make a big difference. Thank you from the Eco Committee.

Last half term the Eco Committee challenged all the classes in Key Stage 2 to reduce the amount of paper they were using. Every week the Eco Committee weighed the amount of paper each class had in their recycling bin. The good news is every class reduced the amount of paper they were using but who won the recycling reducing race? The results are in! In 3rd place Class Williams, in 2nd place Class Williams-Jones and in 1st place setting an excellent eco example, Class S Taylor. Well done to everyone!

In recognition of the work we have been doing with Groundwork at our school to reduce our waste we have received a Realising Resources Award. On Wednesday 26th November Miss Williams-Jones and 2 Year 6 representaives from the Eco Committee attended an awards ceremony at the Porthcawl Pavillion to receive the award on behalf of the school. The award was presented by BBC Wales weather man Derek Brockway.

What do you do with your rubbish? Of course you should try to reduce, reuse and recycle or you could create a giant eco art attack. That is what we did during our ESDGC week. In partnership with Groundwork
(a group that works with schools on environmentally friendly awareness projects) we embarked on creating a giant recycled photo frame. Each child in Key Stage 2 brought in a piece of rubbish to add to the frame made from recycled wood. When the frame was finished every class wrote an eco message on recycled Yellow Pages and stepped into the frame to share their message with a smile.

Welcome to the Eco Echo.
We wanted to be able to share all the Eco events and activities happening at our school with you and with the 3 R's (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) in mind the Eco Committee decided that the most environmentally friendly way to do this would be to create our own virtual newspaper. Here you can find out what our Eco Committe 'Green Team' and the rest of the school have been doing.