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Early Years work has led to the children engaging more with their environment. Not only are you creating experiences for them to learn at their level but you are enabling them to become critical thinkers. Your children being taught where food comes from directly combats food waste as they learn to appreciate the effort and resources required to grow it. We are impressed by how you have planted seeds for the living wall in the nursery. Through these experiences they are learning the process of food production.

We also Loved:

• Your children's understanding of environmental issues has clearly grown through learning experiences such as participating in the RSPB bird watch. We loved that the children extended their learning by making binoculars out of recyclable materials and using them to quietly spot the birds and listen to the sounds of nature. Your staff has impressively integrated a variety of environmental issues into learning. We appreciate that after the bird watch, the children made simple bird feeders, collected natural resources to build their own nests. It is especially inspiring that some children chose to make their own birds out of clay.
• Your efforts to make sustainable swaps are much appreciated. Changing to plastic free wipes benefit the environment by preventing microplastic pollution and reducing sewer blockages. You can go a step further and use FSC Certified wipes as these ensure that the wood pulp or bamboo used to make them is sourced from responsibly managed forests.
• We love how community-minded your setting is. We are impressed by how you regularly donate to food banks and charities. Educating young children about giving back is special. We are sure those children who received Christmas chocolates were pleased. You are creating a space for the children to become global citizens by donating to a local mosque for their religious festival.
• You've made a powerful an thoughtful change by donating the children's beds to another setting. This act prevents harmful materials entering our environment, it decreases the need for raw materials and promotes a circular economy.

Next year, why not try ...

We realise that your greatest challenge is transport. Being a setting that is at a workplace means that parents and carers need to travel a far distance to get to the setting, this then means that children miss out on walking or scooting to the setting. We suggest introducing a park and stride initiative; this will encourage families to park a bit further away and get out and walk the rest of the journey to the setting. Whilst this is a small improvement it could have a big impact by reducing local air pollution, decreasing greenhouse gas emissions and limits traffic congestion!

In previous years we have been involved in ….

• Planting 90 trees and shrubs on campus
• Litter picking
• Donations to the Canley Food Bank
• Creating sensory gardens
• Learning about recycling
• Replacing single use plastic PPE aprons, with PVC wipeable ones
• Changing our plastic milk bottles to glass bottles
• Making bird feeders
• Making seed bombs
• Becoming water warriors
• Growing vegetables and herbs