Our Aims

Biodiversity

Our aim at Ryecroft Academy is to protect our local and wider environment.

School Grounds

At Ryecroft Academy we are passionate about developing our school grounds to support conservation.

Healthy Living

At Ryecroft Academy we promote that healthy living goes hand in hand with caring for the environment.

Litter

Our aim at Ryecroft Academy is to reduce the amount of litter on our school grounds and local area whilst educating ourselves about being responsible with our litter.

At Ryecroft Academy our aim is to become more environmentally sustainable to help protect our community and prevent climate change from getting worse. With our partnerships with Eco-Schools, Energy Sparks and the wider Gorse Academies Trust, we are pledging to create a more sustainable and less wasteful future for all. Our Conservation Leaders have selected four areas that we are going to work on to achieve this; biodiversity, school grounds, healthy living and litter.

Our Partnerships

Eco Schools

The Eco-Schools programme is to unite young people to make changes and positive impacts to our planet. Pupils will have the privilege to learn about impactful environmental actions in order to make a difference in their school and local community.

Energy Sparks

Energy Sparks helps schools become more energy efficient and help to fight climate change. The programme is designed to help schools reduce their electricity, gas usage and carbon emissions through smart meter data analysis to help in addressing the climate emergency.

Our Families

We link with our families to work together as a community to support the environment and learn about the ways in which our actions and choices can have a positive impact.

Our progress so far

Here at Ryecroft Academy, we have a lot in place to support biodiversity.

  • Our school grounds provide a multitude of habitats. To encourage insect life we have bug hotels, log piles, rock piles and leaf piles. Our conservation garden is the perfect space and is home to a huge array of insects. We also have homes for birds and other animals. We provide birdhouses, bat boxes and  hedgehog hideaways.
  • We provide birds and hedgehogs with food, and we regularly top up our feeders.
  • Our wild flower meadow supports biodiversity. We select appropriate flowers as well as a wild flower mix to encourage pollination and ensure they are bee-friendly.
  • We have launched house competitions to support biodiversity at home and in the local community such as building animals homes (bird boxes, hedgehog hideaways and many more!)
  • As a school, we have fundraised for conservation projects. Our latest events raised money for The World Land Trust.
  • We use environmentally friendly cleaning products to clean our school building.
  • Fair trade tea/coffee is now available in the staff room.
  • We are committed to involving our families and community partners in our planting and development of habitats.
  • We provide our children with wildflower seeds as a birthday gesture to encourage growing and pollination in our community.
  • We have developed an allotment zone with beds for each House team. This supports of childrens’ learning of the ‘eat the rainbow’ concept.
  • We have established a ‘Bamboo Base’ which is used as an outdoor learning area, a planting zone and it hosts our healthy tuck shop utilising the bamboo serving hatch.
  • We have developed an Orchard Zone which helps our efforts to grow and supports our scientific learning.
  • We have established living walls on our site. One supports the creation of habitats whilst the other allows us to grow mini-edibles.
  • The produce from our mini-edible living wall, House allotment beds, Orchard and eggs laid by our chickens, helps us to create food boxes which we donate to St George’s Crypt, supporting homelessness across the Leeds City region. Our complimentary recipe cards, created by pupils, provide great ideas for healthy meals.
  • We have sown a commemorative Remembrance Poppy Meadow which we nurture and replenish each year. This academic year, we will an additional purple poppy meadow to show respect for the contribution of animals.
  • We use our site to grow flower and plant gifts for our families and community.
  • For a number of years now, we have committed to any new display boards being made of material with a recycled core and we encourage our staff to recycle materials when creating displays.
  • Each class looks after a classroom plant and this concept has been extended to every office area too.
  • We have developed an ‘eco-friendly’ themed library which houses several plants and uses untreated wood from forestry. The forestry has acted to support conservation.
  • We participated in the ‘trays to trowels’ scheme and recycled our dining room trays into gardening trowels which we use to plant and grow.
  • We have developed a ‘Tree of Celebration’ sculpture in our assembly hall which promotes positive forestry and recycling.
  • Staff have used recycled materials as part of a House competition to rejuvenate classroom displays and children use recycled materials as part of a House competition to create Christmas baubles.
  • We have secure bicycle storage for pupils and staff.
  • We are investigating rescuing the onsite ponds to provide extra habitat for living things to thrive.

At Ryecroft, we are committed to reducing our energy use at school and at home. Here are some examples of things we have done:

  • We have classroom plants that remind people to turn off electrical devises and lights when they are not in use.
  • Each year we hold a successful Energy Saving Day.
  • We include energy saving tips in our school newsletter.
  • We are using ‘Energy Sparks’ to help support our approach to saving energy across our school.
  • We are always thinking about energy efficient ways to use our electrical in school with the support of our conservation leaders.
  • We use Energy Sparks to track our energy use.
  • We have LED bulbs and automatic lights.
  • Our windows are mostly free from displays to let in natural light and our radiators are free from blockages to allow effective heat distribution.
  • We have draft strips on most of our doors and we have double glazing in many areas.
  • We have secure bicycle storage for pupils and staff.
  • Our school vehicle is fuel efficient.
  • We provide cycle training for our pupils.
  • Electronic devises are distributed for reuse or recycle when no longer needed.

The conservation team are in the process of designing energy saving posters for around the school. These will then be made by professionals to be long lasting and will use a sustainable resource where possible.

At Ryecroft Academy, our aim is to further reduce the litter around school and the local community. We strive to educate people about being responsible with our litter. Here are some of the examples of ways we have acted on our aim:

  • Litter picking on our ‘Green Day!’ with EYFS.
  • Regular litter picking around school.
  • We loan our litter pickers to our families to enable them to litter pick in the community whilst getting healthy exercise too.
  • The ‘sustainable tips’ in our newsletters give advice on reducing litter.
  • We have recycling bins in place which allow us to recycle paper.
  • We also have House competition recycling bins which allow us to recycle litter positively. Our crisp packets were used to make sustainable playground equipment and park benches.
  • We recycle litter to create displays and Christmas decorations.
  • We have a clothing bank on our school grounds for our families to use.
  • We run pre-loved, uniform, clothing, other item swap shops.
  • Instead of standard paper we use seeded paper for some certificates and our Gorse Get’s Healthy challenges as we prefer to use this paper to create our wildflower meadow rather than create litter.

  • We have Gorse Gets Healthy pupil representatives who work collaboratively with our Conservation Leaders.
  • Instead of standard paper we use seeded paper for some certificates and our Gorse Get’s Healthy challenges as we prefer to use this paper to create our wildflower meadow rather than create litter.
  • We loan our litter pickers to our families to enable them to litter pick in the community whilst getting healthy exercise too.
  • We have secure bicycle storage for pupils and staff.
  • We provide cycle training for our pupils.
  • When we fundraise as community focused citizens for charity, we often use exercise activities as a way of fundraising.
  • We have developed an allotment zone with beds for each House team. This supports of childrens’ learning of the ‘eat the rainbow’ concept.
  • We have established a ‘Bamboo Base’ which is used as an outdoor learning area, a planting zone and it hosts our healthy tuck shop utilising the bamboo serving hatch.
  • We have established living walls on our site. One supports the creation of habitats whilst the other allows us to grow mini-edibles.
  • The produce from our mini-edible living wall, House allotment beds, Orchard and eggs laid by our chickens, helps us to create food boxes which we donate to St George’s Crypt, supporting homelessness across the Leeds City region. Our complimentary recipe cards, created by pupils, provide great ideas for healthy meals.
  • We enjoy being outside and active as we take part in planting, growing, litter picking and animal / bird feeding.
  • We regularly learn about the ‘Eat the Rainbow’ concept through our curriculum and the Captain’s Café reward.