Every MiChild Nursery Now Holds The Green Flag.

At MiChild, we believe that caring for children means caring for the world they are growing up in. That is why we are proud to share that every single MiChild nursery has now achieved the Eco-Schools Green Flag Award, one of the most respected sustainability accreditations available to early years settings across the UK. It is a fitting recognition of what our teams, children and families work towards every day.

What is the Green Flag Award?

The Green Flag Award is best known as the UK benchmark for well managed parks and green spaces, run by the environmental charity Keep Britain Tidy under licence from the UK Government. In 2025 alone, 2,250 parks and green spaces across the country earned the accolade, recognising sites that are welcoming, safe, well maintained and rich in biodiversity (Green Flag Award).

There is also a sister award that is far more relevant to nurseries, and the one that every MiChild setting now proudly flies: the Eco-Schools Green Flag, also delivered by Keep Britain Tidy. This is the highest accolade within the Eco-Schools programme, an internationally recognised scheme designed to embed environmental action and sustainability education into the culture of schools, colleges and nurseries (Eco-Schools).

How our nurseries earned their Green Flag

The Eco-Schools programme is built around a simple seven step framework, adapted specifically for early years settings so that even the youngest children can take part (Eco-Schools Early Years). Every MiChild nursery worked through each of these steps to earn its flag:

1. Form an Eco-Committee — a group of children, supported by staff, parents and sometimes the wider community, who help lead the nursery's environmental work.
2. Carry out an Environmental Review — looking honestly at what the setting already does well and where there is room to improve.
3. Write an Action Plan — linking activity to at least three Eco-Schools topics over the year, with climate action as a core focus.
4. Link to the curriculum — connecting environmental themes to everyday learning, so sustainability becomes part of how children understand the world.
5. Inform and involve — sharing progress with the whole nursery community, including families and local partners.
6. Monitor and evaluate — measuring the impact of each action, whether through observation, photos, surveys or simple data collection.
7. Create an Eco-Code — a child-led mission statement that captures the nursery's environmental values and is displayed proudly for all to see.

Once these steps are in place and evidenced, a nursery can apply for its Eco-Schools Green Flag during the annual application window, which runs from 1 May to 31 July each year (Eco-Schools). Applications are reviewed by trained, DBS checked assessors, and the flag itself is valid for one academic year before renewal is required, with expectations rising each time a setting reapplies, something every MiChild nursery is already gearing up for.

Why it matters for children, families and the sector

Winning a Green Flag across every one of our nurseries is never just about the flag itself. It represents:

• Real environmental impact. Litter picks, growing projects, energy saving initiatives and biodiversity work all leave a lasting, tangible mark on each of our settings and their local areas.
• Meaningful early learning. Children on our Eco-Committees take genuine ownership of projects, building confidence, curiosity and a sense of responsibility that stretches well beyond the nursery gates.
• Stronger community ties. The programme actively encourages nurseries to involve parents, carers and local groups, turning sustainability into a shared endeavour rather than a tick box exercise.
• A trusted external benchmark. Because assessments are carried out independently, the Green Flag gives families a clear, credible signal that MiChild takes environmental responsibility seriously in every single one of its nurseries, not just a select few.

This mirrors exactly what we hold dear at MiChild. Outdoor learning and connection with the natural world sit at the heart of how we help children develop, and now every MiChild nursery has the external recognition to match the work our teams already put in every day.

A standard we are proud to fly across the whole group

Whether it is a park earning its flag for being a welcoming, well cared for green space, or a nursery earning its flag for embedding sustainability into the daily life of its youngest learners, the Green Flag stands for the same core idea: quality that has been independently checked and is worth celebrating.

For parents choosing a nursery, seeing an Eco-Schools Green Flag flying above every MiChild setting is a telling detail. It shows a group that looks beyond the day to day and thinks about the kind of world it is helping to shape for the children in its care, one action plan, one growing bed and one Eco-Committee meeting at a time. We could not be prouder of every child, parent and member of staff who helped make this achievement possible across the whole of MiChild.

Sources: Green Flag Award, Eco-Schools: What is Eco-Schools?, Eco-Schools: Early Years, Eco-Schools: Seven Steps for Nurseries, Eco-Schools FAQs