Orchard Grove Primary School is proud to call itself a sustainable school. The school has embraced many sustainability programs that have become an integral part of the school. The Sustainability Captains and the Green Team play a major role in running the programs.
Smart Food Tuesday encourages children to have a rubbish free lunch every Tuesday. This also has a run on effect to other days of the week. Green Team members record results on a tally spreadsheet. Children are rewarded for their efforts by participating in the Smart Food Raffle, where the winner receives a reward at Friday Assembly. Classes compete to be the Smart Food class of the week and this class gets to keep the Golden Lunchbox Award in their room.
We recycle and collect food scraps and have stations for soft plastics, compost and mixed recyclables located around the school. Each classroom also has a bin for paper and cardboard recycling. We collect the stickers from fruits and vegetables to ensure that our compost is plastic free. Our compost collections are used in our worm farms and to ensure we have healthy soil in our kitchen garden.
Every March we participate in Clean Up Australia Day and host our own Clean Up Orchard Grove Day. We encourage students to bring gardening gloves and each class spends some time collecting rubbish in school grounds, the surrounding sports fields and in ‘Wurundjeri Walk’.
Susan is our wonderful resident horticulturalist and she runs ‘The Grove’, our school kitchen garden with the Grade 3 and 4 students. We have a great school kitchen and garden program where every Friday, Trinity cooks a healthy and seasonal menu using produce from ‘The Grove’ with these classes.
Every year we plant shrubs and plants around the school, as part of the National Tree Day program. The children also participate in ‘Green Day’ where they display their creativity in dressing up! Each year level also participates in environmental activities on this day. In 2022 activities included a visit from Box Hill South Bunnings, scavenger hunts and writing narratives with a sustainable message.
We are so lucky that our school is located adjacent to such a wonderful natural reserve, ‘Wurundjeri Walk’. The children have the opportunity to observe lots of fauna and flora. In Spring, native ducks from the wetlands are regular visitors to our school.
We are very proud of our sustainability achievements at Orchard Grove Primary School.
Tahnee Ramsay and Elizabeth Padman
Sustainability Co-ordinators