In Term 3, 2015 Belle Vue was officially awarded its first environmental star as part of the ResourceSmart Schools program. Belle Vue is now an official one star school and we will be taking the next step to add another star in the coming months as we continue our journey to become a five star school. We are now well on the way!

The grounds around Belle Vue are looking fabulous as we have had a range of planning days and introduced some new raised garden beds to grow nutritious vegetables. We have also had some fantastic parents coming in to help make soup using produce from our vegetable garden.

This Term has seen the introduction of Enviroweek at Belle Vue. This included the inaugural EnviroDay when students took part in many activities including planting/mulching, upcycling waste to make bird feeders, finding out about the importance of bees and also learning about water pollution.

During Enviroweek each class was challenged to get out of the classroom and turn off the “big 3” (heating, lighting and ICT). All classes got involved in this challenge. The total number of hours that the school spent learning outside the classroom being equivalent to one class not using heating, lighting or ICT for 6 whole days!

Another challenge was to reduce the amount of packaging that the students bring into the school as part of their lunch and snack. This was designed to encourage students to use reusable packaging for their food. As a result the amount of packaging was reduced from 1.54 items of packaging per student to 1.17 items per student. Another great achievement!