Tollgate Community Junior School

The ‘Adopt a Beach’ project

Tollgate is lucky enough to have the beach and sea on its doorstep. This provides wonderful learning opportunities.

In June 2021 we signed up to the ‘Adopt a Beach’ project run by Plastic Free Eastbourne.

The project encourages members of the local community to help care for beaches. They do this by ‘adopting’ a section of the beach and carrying out beach cleans.

• Our ‘adopted’ section is BEACH 78 which is near the skate park. See the map of BEACH 78.

As well as doing beach cleans, we would like to use ‘our beach’ in other ways. Our ideas include:

• taking classes and groups to the beach to sketch
• taking photographs throughout the year
• have story time, etc…
   

Family Beach Cleans

You may like to get involved as a family and carry out a beach clean in your own time.

If so, the organizers ask that you read and take note of:

1. The Risk Assessment as completed by the organizers.
2. The safety briefing This document has been broken down into easy to read sections below.
3. Survey  The survey is to take with you and record what you found on the beach.

If you prefer, you can request a copy of the survey from the office. After your clean, return it to the office or your class teacher. We will return it to the organizers.

We look forward to seeing your photos and beach survey findings from your family Beach Cleans. We can add these to our ‘Adopt a beach’ DB primary page.

Safety Briefing

Read this out to all volunteers before every beach clean.

Before you go:

• All children under the age of 16 (and vulnerable adults) must be with a legally responsible adult.
• A risk assessment has been undertaken by the volunteer beach clean organiser before the beach clean.
• You must have the names and contact details of every one of your group of volunteers.

Kit:

• Wear protective gloves at all times during the beach clean.
• Bring a first aid kit if you have one.
• In case of emergency, please carry a mobile phone or know where you can reach a landline, should there be no reception.
• Wear suitable clothing for the weather conditions of the day.
• Bring a ‘sharps box’ for syringes, glass and other sharp objects found.

On the day:

• Please bring secured bags back up to the promenade and place next to the nearest waste bin for collection by the council.
• Tides – all beach cleaners should follow along and above the high-tide line.
• Do not collect any animal faeces or dead animals. Alert the Council to these please.
• Do not tamper or interact will the local flora and fauna.
• Volunteers should not try to lift or move heavy objects without assistance.
• Do not touch any unusual or potentially hazardous items that cannot be easily identified. These will need to be removed by the relevant council or maritime agency.
• Volunteers should avoid the groyne edges, slippery rocks, cliff bases and any extremely muddy areas wherever possible.

Important Info:

• Public toilets 10am-3pm are available, for example, at Holywell, Bandstand, Water Treatment Plant.
• There are water Refill Stations at different points along the seafront.