Daventry academy school Falconer's Hill wins national eco accreditation

A Daventry academy school has been recognised for its pupils’ ongoing dedication to the environment with a coveted national eco accreditation.

Falconer’s Hill Academy, part of the David Ross Educational Trust, has been awarded prestigious ‘Green Flag status’ by the national Eco-Schools England organisation after a year of hard work and dedication by pupils and staff to achieve recognition.

Green Flag status was designed by Eco-Schools, which is overseen by the Keep Britain Tidy organisation, to acknowledge, reward and celebrate the ecological achievements of young people in the UK and inspire them to care about the environment throughout their lives.

Falconer’s Hill has its own ‘ECO Team’ of pupils who impressed award assessors inspecting the school’s eco credentials with their initiatives including writing an ‘ECO Code’ to be learnt by all children, reducing the use of disposable plastic cups and bottles by buying water bottled, encouraging families to reduce their use of cling film and foil in packed lunches and even using recycled plastic bottle to create artwork,

Following its successful inspection this summer, the school will now be entitled to hold the Green Flag status for a year before being re-inspected, to ensure its ongoing ecological commitment.

Falconer’s Hill has also become one of the first schools in the county to be rewarded with one of West Northamptonshire Council’s new Northamptonshire Healthy Schools Awards, achieving a Bronze award.

The awards are designed to improve the health and wellbeing of whole school communities which must attain certain standards across areas including mental health and wellbeing, healthy eating, physical activity and PSHE (personal, social, health and economic education).

Award organisers praised the school, which introduced exercise stations, developed a school allotment and provided salad tasting days with its catering partner Caterlink, for its “fantastic examples of good practice as this allows other schools across the county to adopt some of these practices in their own settings”.

The school will now start working towards the Healthy Schools Silver Award.

Falconer’s Hill has previously been commended by Ofsted for its sterling work in engaging pupils with school initiatives and programmes such as its Eco Team.

Ofsted, which rated the school ‘Good’ in its last inspection in 2022, singled out the opportunities pupils are given at the school “to voice their thoughts and opinions” and commented, “Pupils are proud of the contribution they make to everyday school life. They learn to be caring and responsible citizens”.

Angela Rock, Principal of Falconers Hill Academy, said:

“We are delighted and proud to have been awarded both Green Flag status by Eco-Schools and the Healthy Schools Bronze Award by West Northamptonshire Council.

“Our pupils are passionate about protecting the environment and about health and wellbeing. Both of these are central to the ethos of the school which puts pupil action and engagement at the centre of everything we do.

“We firmly believe that encouraging and educating children to lead the way in such initiatives helps them to foster and adopt practices and attitudes which will last a lifetime.”

Simon Rose, Director of Primary Education at the David Ross Education Trust, said:

“Falconer’s Hill Academy has rightly been recognised again for the strength of its commitment to working together on holistic school community initiatives which are not only educational but which crucially also have a wider impact on the pupils’ lives at this key time in their development.

“We are very proud of their success both by achieving Green Flag status from Eco-Schools and also a Healthy Schools award.”