Apex Action Funding Spurs on School Eco Activities

Apex Action was delighted to discover that the recycling efforts of Horn’s Mill Primary School, Helsby near Frodsham, went from strength to strength after the funding Apex gave them to support their initial eco ventures.

The school boasts a complimentary recycling area with 7 food waste containers and 2 secure hot bins. It has created a child safe horticultural area, runs a composting project and textile recycling programme.

When Covid struck, to reduce the transmission of the virus, school meals had to be served using single use crockery and cutlery, albeit recyclable.  The school used this as an opportunity to develop a whole school recycling project to make its own compost, an end product that is used in its onsite polytunnel to grow food and plants.

The project helps the children develop a better understanding of the importance of sustainability for our planet, linking to the national curriculum in terms of maths, reading, science and technology, and creative writing.  It also enables school to provide significantly higher quality in several areas of school life:

Environment – reduced waste from recycling, reduced carbon footprint as the recycling bi-product is used to grow their own vegetables that are used in the school kitchen, and reduced costs from having less waste to collect.

Curriculum – the Science national curriculum requires children to learn about food chains and how plants and humans grow and thrive.  At present it has little mention of environmental issues that the school consider to be vitally important to the children’s growing knowledge, understanding and responsibilities as our next generation.  This project allows them to learn that knowledge.

Fundraising – a successful vegetable crop sees the school being able to sell some of the produce to the local community in tandem with the eggs they sell from their chickens.  The school’s ultimate aim is to host a farmer’s market on site to team up with other local producers, generating income for the school and local community.

Community – The school has engaged with a local care home to ask residents to share their knowledge and expertise on growing produce.  In the long term, as hopefully the pressures of Covid subside, the school intends to forge greater links with the wider local community.

As well as the composting venture, the school has also teamed up with Roberts Recycling to offer textile recycling.   Parents can donate jumpers, shirts, hats, hoodies and more!  So far this programme has generated over £200 and all monies will be used to purchase extra-curricular items for pupils.

Julie Colquitt, School Business Manager at Horn’s Mill Primary School, Frodsham comments,
“As we’ve demonstrated our school has a genuine “green” ethos and we are always striving to do more.  I know as a business Apex are also passionate about the environment and education.  We look forward to working together in the future to drive this initiative even further forward”.

 Chris Hutchings, Managing Director of Apex added,
“We are very proud to be a partner with the excellent Horn’s Mill Primary School.  The initial eco funding from Apex acting as a catalyst for the school to drive other environmental and community initiatives is superb.  We are excited to continue our partnership with the school and look forward to their next adventures!”

“Apex Action” is Apex’s volunteering & funding initiative for school & community projects.  They are always up for a challenge & doing something a bit different!  If you’d like to see whether they can support your project contact Debbie on debbie.snelson@apexconnected.com or call 01925 202315 to discuss further.  Visit www.apexconnected.com #ApexAction