An open invitation to all schools

Dear Headteacher,

A couple of years ago a letter was sent to local schools, asking for contributions to the Schools page on our website .

As explained in our earlier letter, the Earley Environmental Group was formed some five years ago, and is supported by Earley Town Council. We have over 400 members, many of whom receive our newsletter by email and access our website. We run monthly walks and talks, including a Bug Hunt in the summer holidays for local children.

So far we have had a disappointing response, with the exception of Maiden Erlegh School, whose daily weather forecast by their Weather Club is carried on our home page. (See page 4 of Sept newsletter).

If you feel your pupils could contribute items specifically about environmental subjects, particularly concerning your school, we would be happy to use them. A few suggestions:

• Ideas contributed by the children
• Wildlife areas created in the school grounds
• Wildlife observations in school locality - foxes, red kites, etc
• How Green is My School? - what energy saving measures are in place?
• Designs for a greener school
• Worries children have about the future of the environment, and what they would do about it.

It is appreciated that schools already have an overloaded timetable , but it could be a valuable exercise in ICT and language for the pupils, as the items could be created on computers and uploaded to our webmaster. They would then have the satisfaction of accessing their own work on our website. Whilst you probably carry out environmental activities already, it would also build on children’s interest in their local environment.

If you would like to contribute to the website, please contact the Webmaster on the EEG website , or the Schools Co-ordinator at sheila.crowson@ntlworld.com, to discuss the best way of submitting the information.

We very much look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Sheila Crowson

Schools Co-ordinator and Newsletter Editor