Prior’s Court is now officially an Eco-Schools recognised Green Flag school.

After around 18 months of work, Prior’s Court has reached Green Flag status as part of the Eco-Schools scheme – the top rank achievable in the programme.

Over the past year, despite challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, activities have continued on-site to empower our young people, all of whom have complex autism, and our staff to play an active role in caring for their environment.

Recent actions taken include:

• Holding an Eco-Day on May Day Bank Holiday Monday, featuring activities for our young people such as recycling workshops, a litter pick across site, craft sessions to form an Eco-Code poster, and more.
• Switching as much of our electricity supply to renewable sources (with switching over the remainder of our meters planned to follow)
• A focused action on reducing printing across site, with our young people emailing staff of reminders on how to cut printing and working towards being paperless

While nine of our young people are on our Eco-Schools committee, the events in the past months have featured dozens of our young people taking part.

Activities have been adapted to give our young people the opportunity to embrace the scheme. For example, using our Virtual Reality headsets to explore the oceans and beaches, while trips to these places have been off-limits due to the pandemic, and using preferred communication methods with young people.

Nickie Dunphy, Prior’s Court Purchasing Manager who is leading on the Eco-Schools project, said:

We are absolutely delighted to achieve Green Flag status from the Eco-Schools project.

This has been a real team effort from staff across Prior’s Court who have grasped this opportunity to truly empower our young people to care for their environment. Huge thanks to those staff who have played a part in this project, and thanks to the young people for their efforts.

This is not the end of our eco-journey. We are determined to continue to make Prior’s Court a greener place to live and work.

Any type of school can join Eco-Schools, but due to the complexity of the conditions the young people at Prior’s Court are affected by, members of staff have produced adapted methods to meet the criteria to achieve Eco-Schools targets, as to meet the needs of the young people. 

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