PUPILS at The Mead Primary have been celebrating the results of their green credentials after achieving an outstanding rating in the It’s Your Neighbourhood Awards.

The school has also been handed the Viridor Trophy for Composting and to mark their achievement, South West in Bloom judge Rosemary Coombes visited the school to present hem with their accolades after nominating pupils.

Garden club Leaders Mel Jacob and Jacky Good have been working hard over the last year to develop the school’s green fingered project and said they were delighted at the awards.

“We had no idea that we had been nominated,” Mrs Jacob said.

“We have worked so hard to develop our composting over many years this is a real cause for celebration.”

Thanks to the children having a fruit snack every day, there is a huge amount of compostable waste generated at the school and the garden gang have also developed a hot composting project to deal with waste after finding that the usual cold compost heaps just weren’t up to the job.

After attending several courses they were able to try out the technique at the school.

“It’s quite simple really,” Mrs Good said. “You just need to turn your compost every week and the magic happens.”

All the compost made in the school gardens where children are involved in growing vegetables for the school kitchen and cooking lessons.

The children are also involved with class Eco Buddies emptying their fruit waste into the compost every day and the school kitchen ensuring that their fruit and vegetable waste also heads down to the compost heap.

Earlier in the year The Mead achieved the prestigious Eco Schools Green Flag which is only held by 1236 schools in England.

“We are really proud of our work to be a green and sustainable school” added headteacher Emma Holton.

“We want the children to be responsible citizens of the future and our work in the school gardens, growing food and composting, recycling and our use of solar panels help children understand how they can look after their planet.”