Eco-Schools Scotland Awards announced

Two schools and an educator have scooped top prizes in our annual Eco-Schools Scotland Awards.

Our Eco-Schools Scotland Awards celebrate outstanding environmental education.

All nominees were from schools which proudly fly the Green Flag – the top accolade in the international Eco-Schools programme which recognises the achievements and commitment of the whole school to Learning for Sustainability.

The Eco-School Scotland Awards recognise those individuals and committees that have truly gone above and beyond in their Eco-Schools work, inspiring those around them and delivering innovative environmental action.

The winners, from nominations made across 17 Scottish local authority areas, are:

Climate Action Project of the Year 2024: Georgetown Primary School, Dumfries and Galloway.

Eco-Committee of the Year 2024: Fishermoss Primary School, Aberdeenshire.

Eco-Coordinator of the Year 2024: Jennifer Sharkey, Principal Teacher of development at Our Lady and St Patrick's High School, West Dunbartonshire.

All winners will receive a trophy made from recycled marine plastic and the two winning schools have been invited to speak at an online training session, which will air on 22 May.

Andrea Gabriel, our Education and Learning Co-ordinator, said: “We love working with, and inspiring the thousands of children, young people and educators in schools across Scotland who are working tirelessly to progress climate change and environmental education action.

“Our awards celebrate the very best of the amazing work being done by so many in their schools and communities, through the Eco-Schools programme. We were so impressed with all the entries and I’d like to say a massive congratulations to all our brilliant winners. We look forward to continuing our work to inspire action for a clean, green and sustainable future.”

In 2022 we launched the Climate Action Schools framework which builds on existing activity, including Eco-Schools, across Scotland. This has increased opportunities for learning across five core components: learning for sustainability; climate emergency; biodiversity; litter and pollution; and amplifying pupil voices. It is supported by the Scottish Government.

Eco-Schools is the largest sustainable schools programme in the world with more than 20million children, young people and educators engaged worldwide in 73 different countries. In Scotland almost 900 schools currently fly the Green Flag proudly while hundreds of others are on their own journey, through our Climate Action Schools framework, to achieve one.

More information can be found at www.keepscotlandbeautiful.org/climate-action-schools