Sustainability
How can St George’s and our children make a difference?
The way to a more sustainable planet depends on how we educate the next generation. We want children to grow up with an understanding of how to look after the planet, and in turn go on and influence others with their behaviour. The earlier we can teach these principles, the better.
For this reason, your children’s awareness of the planet and the environment should be promoted through their daily activities, the resources that they use, and the interactions we all have with them.
Green Flag Approved!
In July 2025, our sustainability efforts were officially recognised with an Eco-Schools Green Flag accreditation!
To achieve this Award, the children went on local litter picks, grew fruits and vegetables in their allotment, took turns being the ‘light monitor’, and engaged in learning activities around travel and transport, energy and water conservation. To read more about our journey to achieving our Green Flag Award, see our news article here.
We are applying for our second Eco-Schools Green Flag accrediation, building on last years success and sustainable changes, as well as continuing our eco learning and creating new sustainable changes.
To increase the bio-diversity of the garden here at St Georges, we built on a recent Eco-schools Green Flag project, adding to the plants and mindfulness opportunities in the garden. A Calm Corner was created with two living walls and planters with shrubs in, as well as a water feature. This has created a quiet area within the garden where children can quietly sit and enjoy the environment. To enhance this area further, bright coloured emotion visuals and a reflective surface were installed to create opportunities to talk about feelings.
We also work closely with Let’s Go Zero and the Climate Ambassadors who have helped us create our very own Climate Action Plan to try and reduce our carbon emissions!
We have taken part in Cut Your Carbon, encouraging the children and their parents to Ditch the drive make 5 miles of travel ‘active’; Veggie Vibes go plant-based for a day; Drop it like it’s hot turn down the heating by 1 degree for a week; Buy nothing new buy nothing new for 1 month; Shower power substitute 4 baths for 4 showers and limit them to 4 minutes; No power hour switch off all non-essential electrical devices for an hour. By sharing these challenges on social media and within parent newsletters we hope we are creating an awareness of how families can make a difference and be more sustainable.
At St Georges we have completed a Count Your Carbon report with support from Let’s Go Zero. This carbon footprint report has helped us produce a carbon reduction plan. With this plan we will implement a series of actions, over the next 1-3 years to reduce our carbon footprint. This has also been added to our Climate Action Plan.
Following the children’s interests into environmental areas of learning has led to our participation in National Education Nature Parks activities. The children specifically enjoyed creating mini wormeries and learning about the important role worms have in our gardens. They also enjoy taking part in science, technology, engineering and mathematics activities, such as British Science Week. This kind of focus supports the children’s learning:
Cognitive Development: Enhances logical thinking, memory, decision-making, and flexible problem solving;
Creativity and Innovation: Encourages children to design, build, and test ideas, fostering inventiveness;
Understanding the World: Supports comprehension of natural phenomena, technology, and basic engineering principles
Preparation for Future Learning: Builds a foundation for later academic success in STEM subjects and everyday problem-solving.
The creation of a Recycled Paper-Making Station in Badgers came about after the children noticed how much paper was being used throughout a day. This observation created a wonderful opportunity to reuse shredded paper and suitable scrap paper from around the building. This helps the children understand the full recycling process in a meaningful and practical way. Once dried, the handmade paper is then kept and reused for future craft and creative activities, giving children a real sense of pride and ownership in what they have made.
Being more sustainable
St George’s provides reusable cotton tote bags for parents to use instead of plastic bags when bringing their children’s wellies etc into the setting. We also ask them to provide a long-life sustainable water bottle for each child.
St George’s offers a ‘Cycle to work scheme’ to all employees in order to promote cycling instead of driving.
We have introduced a ‘meat free’ days and donate food to local food banks during harvest time.
Making printing more sustainable with PrintReleaf, a scheme that guarantees to plant one tree for a certain amount a copy printed.
St George’s collects unwanted clothes twice per year and has them collected with The Little Recyclers, who will give St George’s £45p per 1Kg of clothes, which will go towards our fundraising.
Recycling
St George’s recycles paper, cardboard, plastic, cans, and tins. In the rooms and in the garden we have child-sized bins so the children can get involved in the sorting.
We recycle batteries.
All rooms collect leftover food from snacks and meals in recycling caddies. This is then reused sustainably through our garden compost bins, food waste collection service, and even our wormery — helping us reduce waste and support our eco-friendly approach.
We also now recycle our ‘soft plastic’!
Reusing and repurposing
We don’t throw away materials that could be suitable for play, so we collect cardboard, paper, plastic to use in arts and crafts activities.
We organise second hand clothes sales to recycle and fundraise for our Charity.
Using less paper
Most, if not all, of our parents and carers’ communications and invoicing are made electronically by email, so we print as little as possible.
Our interactive app Ovivio/Blossom allows us to share a child’s pictures and updates with their parents without the need for printing.
Online banking and the use of finance software like Xero is helping us move towards becoming a paperless business.
All our marketing is done through social media.
Making use of the outdoors (and little green fingers!)
We are lucky enough to have great outdoor space, so the children are able to grow flowers, fruit and veggies in our allotment.
With the aim to have a greener outdoors area, we invest in plants and plant trees where possible.
We host weekly Forest school sessions for the children in a specially developed area of our allotment and use litter picking equipment which can be loaned to parents.
We have developed our allotment and our playground with bee friendly plants and support biodiversity with a wild meadow/wildlife area to bring more nature and greenery.
As part of our mission to become eco-friendlier and more sustainable, we have now set up a wormery. Children feed worms with food like fruit and vegetable scraps, teabags, coffee grounds etc. The wormery will produce 2 types of fertiliser – worm ‘tea’ and castings. The tea is a liquid that is diluted in water for use on non-edible plants and castings can also be used on plants.
The children ensure there is water and food in the garden for the birds. They enjoy taking part in The Big Garden Bird Watch each year and they have built more bird boxes to entice birds to nest.
What we buy
Where we can, we buy in bulk to reduce packaging waste (and save money!). We collect natural materials for play, like feathers, conkers, pine cones, or sticks.
When we buy new things, we try to make sustainable equipment purchases – wooden toys and tables, rather than bad-quality plastic which we would have to replace in a few years.
We use ‘laundry sheets’ and we refill our hand wash dispensers so we use less plastic.
We buy locally sourced products for the meals which are prepared in our kitchen each day; our butcher and greengrocer are based in the Tunbridge Wells area.
Water conservation
With water being such a valuable resource, teaching children to use it wisely is vital. At St George’s, we make sure children do not waste water by playing with the toilets flush or taps etc.
We have ‘auto turn off’ taps so as to not waste any water.
Rainwater is collected in our water butts so we can water plants and our crops sustainably.
We also carefully monitor the use of our hosepipes within the garden and playground so no waste is made.
Energy saving
When possible, we lower the temperature of our washing machines to 40 degrees.
We turn down or switch off our heating system when not needed.
We have introduced smart switches around the building to avoid wasting energy and save on electricity.
The recent replacement of our building windows with new double glazed UPVC ones is improving the building energy saving, rating and insulation.
We use LED lighting throughout the building.
The power of the early years
Encouraging a sustainable mindset will carry through to when children head to primary school and onwards.
Not only this, children will take their habits and understanding back home, getting their families on board. That is why our role in the early years is so important.
By choosing more sustainable practices, children will build their knowledge and values while developing an appreciation of the environment and the way it affects their world. In turn, this is setting the foundations for an environmentally responsible adulthood and a planet that starts to look a lot more secure.
Winning Bronze at the 2024 Wilder Kent Awards
We’re also proud to display our Wilder Kent Award (Bronze), which we won in 2024 for our hard work in becoming more sustainable as a charity, teaching our children how to care for the environment, and helping to create a Wilder Kent. See our news article here, for more information.
