A WINCHESTER primary school is the first in Hampshire to be awarded for being eco-friendly.

St Bede Church of England Primary School received a ModeShift Stars Award last month, which recognises schemes, projects, or other activities that support and encourage sustainable travel.

The school is also taking part in national ‘Waste Week’ next week (March 24-28), and organiser Kirsty Green, of St Bede School, said they are going for gold.

“We are a silver level eco-friendly school,” she said. “We are going for green flag status and we do a lot of eco work with the children.

“The award was given to us because we encourage walking to school as much as possible, and we have 90 per cent of families generally walk to school every day.”

The waste week, which sees more than 1,900 schools across the country take part, aims to raise awareness about the importance of reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfill.

Through March schools can pick a week to take part in games, watch videos, make posters and join in other activities to highlight where rubbish actually goes, and how recycling can be a huge benefit.

The campaign is run by EDF Energy, and is supporting schools by supplying free online resources dubbed ‘The Pod’, and it is expected that 2.5 million children will take part.

St Bede will be making sustainable parachutes out of recycled materials and holding a race as one of their activities.