Herefordshire Council is second in the national league table for successful authorities supporting the environmental award scheme, Eco-Schools.
The county has a staggering 86 per cent of schools registered for the scheme. More than over half of these have achieved one or more of the award levels and 15 have achieved the prestigious Green Flag Award.
Eco-Schools is an international award programme that guides schools on their sustainable journey, providing a framework to help embed these principles into the heart of school life.
Children are the driving force behind Eco-Schools - they lead the eco-committee and help carry out an audit to assess the environmental performance of their school. Measuring and monitoring is an integral part of the Eco-Schools programme, providing schools with all the evidence they need to really shout about their environmental success.
Mary Burton, sustainability officer at Herefordshire Council, has co-ordinated the highly successful scheme here for a number of years. She is very proud of the schools achievements in this time and credits success to very committed staff and pupils in schools, excellent partnership working within the council and support of a very proactive local Eco-Schools Co-ordinator, Jane Denny.
Mary is about to take up a new one-year secondment role as West Midlands Sustainable Schools Co-ordinator. Based at Government Office in Birmingham, she will be supporting local authorities and other key partners across the region to promote and support Sustainable Schools*.
Mary said: "I shall miss working with the very proactive schools here and supporting them with future projects. I'm really looking forward to seeing what other local authorities are doing and developing a programme to support them with the sustainable schools agenda in the West Midlands. I think the successful lessons learnt here can be replicated at a regional level."
Herefordshire's Sustainable Schools conference will be held in November 2008. For further information contact: eco-schools@herefordshire.gov.uk