Pupils, parents and staff at a North Yorkshire prep school put their backs into a major project to help offset their carbon emissions.
Almost 300 rowan, ash, oak, cherry and hazel trees were planted at a Nidderdale beauty spot after pupils at Belmont Grosvenor School worked out their school run carbon footprint.
Belmont Grosvenor School Eco Club member George Ward encouraged parents and staff to fill in a questionnaire about travel to and from the school, based at Swarcliffe Hall, Birstwith.
And using the results, he worked out how many trees had to be planted to offset the carbon emissions.
With the help of the Rotary Club of Harrogate, which has so far planted more than 7500 trees in the Nidderdale area of Outstanding Beauty as part of its Carbon Emissions Offset Scheme, pupils, staff and parents took their spades to How Stean Gorge and got planting!
Belmont Grosvenor School planted almost 300 trees at the beauty spot – and Year 1 teacher and Eco Club co-ordinator Ann Harrison is delighted with the response to the project:
It was a windy, sunny day,and everyone worked really hard to plant 300 trees, led by Terry Knowles’ team from the Rotary Club of Harrogate.
The stakes were marked with the initial of a tree and we dug holes, put round the protective tube and staked the young trees.
George’s initial idea of doing this proved a great success.
Belmont Grosvenor School is a co-educational prep school which, along with its Magic Tree Day Nursery, caters for children from three months to 11 years.
It is part of the international Eco Schools programme, which aims to help schools and nurseries achieve the Government’s target of becoming sustainable by 2020.
The school, which already has the bronze Eco Schools award, aims to get the prestigious ‘Green Flag’ status, marking Belmont Grosvenor as one of the top Eco Schools in the country.
