The pupils who comprise the Eco-Committee of  St Elizabeth's Primary School, Hamilton, have such a flair for entrepreneurship that no doubt they will appear on Junior Apprentice  before too long.  As they wait to hear if their application for a fourth Green Flag, a coveted award from the Eco-schools programme, has been successful, it is only right to honour such a pro-active and focused team of young people, led by enthusiastic teacher Christine Emmett.

St Elizabeth's Eco-Committee is made up of a pupil from every class.  The children work together to raise awareness within the school about where and how food is produced, what food is healthy, and how waste should be disposed of.  Their array of projects have included sending letters to the Scottish Parliament supporting their bill for healthy schools by affirming how much they enjoy being offered free fruit and water and having low-sugar, low-salt lunches.  They have walked to school for breakfast to celebrate Farmhouse Breakfast Week.  On the basis of a public referral, they have been awarded a cheque for £500 from Pride of Place to assist them in buying gardening tools and equipment so that they can grow their own food within the school playground.  The Committee even encouraged all pupils to save Morrisons Vouchers, which enabled them to purchase a small garden shed.

Recently, when the school cook was concerned about the poor uptake of fruit, water and salad from the school canteen menu, the group came up with the concept of Foody Figures.  Each week the committee place sign-up charts under separate pictures of fruit, water and salad for  pupils to daily sign when they have consumed them.  Then, during the weekly School Assembly, a committee member  randomly selects a name from each grid and awards Eco prizes ranging from skipping ropes to recycled stationery.  This novel and motivating healthy eating initiative has proved very popular and greatly increased fruit, water and salad consumption.

They have also hosted a Fruit and Vegetable Extravaganza, whereby each class was allocated a fruit or a vegetable to research, cook with, sing songs about, dress up as and display in order to highlight the importance of this food group. The P7 pupils recycled used school water bottles into carrot tops to be worn on their heads whilst performing their class song about Sid Carrot. They also invented Classy Carrot recipes to be compiled into a Classy Carrot Cookery Book

For more inspiring ideas about how to integrate British food into the Curriculum, click here to see the Love British Food resource guide Putting the Ooo! back into food.