Hartlepool primary school receives British Council award after efforts to help the environment

West View Primary School, in Hartlepool’s Davison Drive, received the International School Award: Foundation Level from the British Council after children spent months learning about the environment and helping make their local area cleaner.

The award, which has four levels in total, came after pupils completed litter picks in the school area and explored what different countries do for the environment.

The efforts were lead by Year 3 teacher Carey Donkin.

Acting headteacher Lauren Furness has said staff and pupils are very proud with the achievement.

She said: "We are really proud to have achieved the award at the school and are grateful to Miss Donkin for the work that she has done in embedding it across the school.

“We are looking forward to seeing it going from strength to strength and being able to see our pupils developing their knowledge and understanding of the wider world and being able to experience what they can learn from other people as well as other countries, what they can learn from their peers in other schools, and that hopefully gives them the opportunity to develop as global citizens.“

After successfully completing the Foundation Level, West View Primary has set its sights on the Intermediate award, which will see the school building connections with schools abroad.

Miss Furness explained: “The award is about embedding international work in school, about broadening our children’s experiences.

"Now, in order to move into the next level of the award, we need to develop some links with schools internationally in order to establish some pen pals with children in a different country.”

Over the Great British Spring Clean between between May 28 and June 13, pupils at the school stormed the school grounds with litter-pickers and bin bags in an attempt to make the premises nicer.

But the youngsters took the initiative to heart and continued to organise the litter picks after that, with nearly 500 children from nursery age to Year 6 signing up to participate throughout different days of each week.

The school is also asking the community to donate any unwanted clothes, shoes and textile items to a clothing bank at the school’s main car park, so they can be resold, reused or recycled.

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