Pupils have been embarking on a concerted push to try and encourage more widespread recycling at their school.

After many were influenced by David Attenborough's eye-opening Blue Planet II series, Year 5 pupils at Oulton Broad Primary School made it their mission to make a difference to the environment.

As part of their 'Materials' class project, pupils designed a questionnaire to find out what other children knew about recycling, and discovered there was plenty of work that needed to be done.

Claire Pagan, Year 5 teacher, said: 'A lot of the class were aware about the importance of recycling because they had seen Blue Planet and heard about it in the news.

'They put together a big questionnaire and sent it out to the whole school. Interestingly, it was found that 99pc of pupils wanted to make a difference to the environment but just didn't know how.

'Although recycling might seem simple, it's actually quite complex because of the variety of different materials you can and can't recycle. As well as that, recycling something you shouldn't often ends up contaminating everything else.'

Having examined the results of the survey, the group wrote a persuasive letter to the headteacher in an attempt to try and encourage the purchase of recycling bins for each classroom.

They have also been pushing for their peers to dispose of waste materials correctly at lunchtime, while the whole school has now been educated on how to recycle properly after the class delivered three assemblies and made informative posters.

Mrs Pagan expressed how pleased she was at the pupils' willingness to have a lasting effect and ensure the school prioritises recycling for years to come.

'It's been brilliant how everyone has really taken this on board,' she said. 'They really expressed a desire to go the extra mile and do something to improve the recycling situation in the school.

'After all, children are the future and what's also great is that they've been going home and teaching their parents about the importance of topic as well.'

As a result of the pupils' admirable efforts, the school was visited by Suffolk Recycling and received the welcome addition of six classroom recycling bins.