Children in Nursery, Reception, Year 1, Year 3 and Year 4 have regular Green School lessons with our Green/Sustainability teacher, Mrs Greene.  These provide space in the curriculum for children to connect with and learn about nature in an enjoyable and creative way.  The lessons also help build children’s wellbeing and resilience. Lessons take place outdoors, usually on the school’s nature trail (a wooded area of the school grounds that is part of Coldfall Woods) or on our school allotment.  Reception children visit Coldfall Woods.  The children learn to use tools, tie knots and identify local birds, other animals and plants. Every year, they sow, harvest and eat fruits or vegetables that they have grown themselves.  At the end of their time at Coldfall, they will have a thorough understanding of what it means to live sustainably and specific actions we can take to help our planet.  Children need wellies in school for their Green School lessons.

Watch the video below to see a tour around our allotment.

Whole school eco initiatives are led by our Star Squad, an eco-committee with a representative from each class from Year 1 to Year 6.  Working with our Green/Sustainability teacher, they set the school’s green agenda for the year and coordinate whole school green initiatives and events throughout the year, such as the Great Big School Clean (cleaning up litter) and Switch Off Fortnight (saving energy).  They monitor the results and report back to their classes.  In 2023-2024 we are focused on Litter, Energy and Water.  In addition to all of the hard work that the Star Squad does, each class has eco-monitors who help with the recycling and remind their peers and teachers to switch off the lights when they are not needed. Children are made aware of the value of paper and are encouraged to ensure all paper is used carefully and fully.

In 2008, Coldfall Primary became the first Haringey school to be awarded a prestigious Green Flag by the Eco-Schools Programme for our work with children on sustainable development and living.  We have renewed this every year since then and in June 2023 we were awarded a Green Flag with distinction – recognition of our ongoing efforts to work with our school community and other partners on environmental issues.  Our work was featured on ITV London’s evening news programme on January 16th 2023, when they came to film our nursery children taking part in the RSPB’s Big Schools’ Birdwatch.  In addition to Green School lessons and whole school eco initiatives, topics such as conservation, biodiversity and climate change are woven into the school curriculum in every year group.

Star Squad revised our school Eco Code in 2024 to reflect our current aims.  This is displayed around school and staff, children and families are asked to follow it.

Coldfall promotes safe and active travel to school as this is good for us and good for the planet. We have achieved Gold Level accreditation from Transport for London’s community project Stars, aimed at promoting safe and active travel to and from school.  Our Year 5 Junior Travel Ambassadors (JTAs) play a key role in this, working with our Green/Sustainability teacher to promote safe and active travel throughout the year.  The JTAs monitor traffic and road safety around the school entrances every week, and communicate with families and children to pass on important messages about safety - for example, reminding children on bikes to wear a helmet, and younger children to hold an adult’s hand when crossing the road.

We take part in Walk to School Month and Walk to School Week every year, and campaign to reduce cars around the school entrances and stop drivers from stopping on the zigzags.

In April 2021, Coldfall Avenue became a School Street following a campaign by our Star Squad to improve road safety near the school. A School Street is a walking and cycling zone that operates during peak drop-off and pick-up times outside a school.  Only people walking and cycling and those with vehicle permits are eligible to enter the zone. Our School Street operates on Coldfall Avenue N10 from 8.00-9.30am and 2.30-4.00pm, Monday to Friday during term time only. The scheme has really improved safety near the Coldfall Avenue school entrance.

We promote walking to school and we have a ’10-minute walk zone’ map in our playground, showing the area in which children can walk to school in 10 minutes or less. The aim of this zone is to encourage as many families as possible to walk either all or part of the way to school. If you do need to drive, please try to park outside of the ‘10-minute walk zone’ and walk the rest of the way.  Remember that walking to school is one of the easiest ways to improve your family’s health and wellbeing. You will also be helping to improve congestion and air quality around the school entrances, making it much safer for children as they approach the school gates. Best of all, it’s free!  We encourage everyone to walk a little each day even if they are driven part of the way.

Our school lunch menu is very healthy and Monday is a meat-free day.  A fresh self-service salad bar is available every day.  We try to reduce food waste at Coldfall and have food waste bins in the dining hall which are collected by the Council for composting. We also encourage children who bring food from home to use reusable containers instead of plastic bags and cling film. Our ultimate goal is to have waste-free lunches. In addition, we have a three-bin composting system in our allotment which encourages children to recycle organic waste from their morning snacks. We grow a range of fruit and vegetables in our allotment for use in our food technology room. Learning about cooking is one of the children’s favourite activities and it is particularly rewarding when they get to sample produce that they have helped to grow.

The school has solar panels installed to help reduce its energy consumption and has introduced a range of other energy-saving measures.  We even have an eco-friendly school uniform. It is made from 100% pure organic cotton, is eco-friendly (no nasty chemicals are used in its production) and ethically and sustainably produced in socially compliant factories certified by GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standards).  We welcome families’ support in developing our green agenda.

In April 2024, our Year 5 Junior Travel Ambassadors took part in Junior Road Watch with the Met Police.  This project aims to raise awareness of the dangers of speeding.  The children got to use a speed gun on roads near school and talk to drivers who were driving too fast after the police had pulled them over.  They thoroughly enjoyed it and learnt a lot about road safety, which they will pass on to their friends and families.