Sustainability leader and art teacher Gillian Davey said the students were "over the moon" to be recognised for this joint state government and Sustainability Victoria initiative.

Randomly selected students from the school's Green Magpie team attended the awards ceremony held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground's Betty Cuthbert Lounge on June 2.

"We don't do what we do at the school to win awards but it was great for the students," Mrs Davey said.

"Things like solar panels on the roof, which we just had installed last year, that falls under sustainability," Mrs Davey said.

"But then there's the Green Magpies. They are an action team and they are motivated, they're passionate, and they have goals and we have an overall plan for four years that we're trying to meet,"

Epsom Primary was nominated for school of the year in the area of primary curriculum leadership, particularly for their work during lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Green Magpies group was nominated for the primary student action team of the year for being among the top demonstrations of environmental leadership in the state.

Mrs Davey said during remote learning, every year level had their own web page with sustainability activities like recycling materials for art projects and building vegie gardens using scraps.

On returning to school, Mrs Davey went through the different classes teaching students about the environment.

"Sitting side by side with the Green Magpies is a state government program called ResourceSmart and that is delivered by Sustainability Victoria," Mrs Davey said.

"The team at Sustainability Victoria delivers resources out to participating schools.

"It's voluntary, but I think I heard last week at the award ceremony there's over 2000 schools in Victoria and 700 of them are ResourceSmart schools, and we got down to the last three in both of our awards category."

There are 36 eager members of the Green Magpies group and they meet weekly - though only nine students could attend the award ceremony.

"I had to draw their names out of a hat, but I would have loved to have taken all of them," Mrs Davey said.

"They have to apply to be part of the group so we have grades three, four, five and six, and the little ones in prep, one and two hear about it for years before they're allowed to even apply.

"So by the time they get to grade three, they all want to apply."

Epsom Primary School has a shed called the 'nest' where students can focus on a range of projects which the community has been engaged in since 2017.

The school has so far progressed through the ResourceSmart Schools star system to level three, first by getting the school council on board and adopting action plans, then to waste management with bins for all recycling and organic waste in each classroom.

Mrs Davey said the system had "transformed" the way the school looked at waste.

During remote learning phase, the school attained the third star for water management and is now working on the flora and fauna star with veggie gardens, an industrial size worm farm, a possum nesting box and a bush block.

And the school did not slow down during COVID-19. During remote learning, Epsom Primary entered the ResourceSmart schools of the future challenge competition, audited home waste, participated in the grow a row initiative to grow potatoes for the community, and even won a recycled Buddy Bench from Coles and Replas.

The students are now working to recycle bread bags and plastic tags - with the latter sent to South Africa to produce seedling trays and plastic products. These are then sold with the funds donated to people using wheelchairs.

There are also reusable bags readily available to members of the school community while students participate in the 'nude food' lunch competition to get points for their school house if they have a wrapper-free lunchbox. If you can think of something, odds are Epsom is already doing it.

Mrs Davey joked that in the early days she didn't see herself as someone who would tie themselves to a tree. Now she would.

"Being a mother I am worried about what sort of state we're leaving the world in for future generations," Mrs Davey said.

"However, there was one of the teachers that won an award last week. She got up and was really honest, and just said, 'the principal tapped me on the shoulder and said, I want you to look after sustainability'.

"She said she wasn't really a greenie but over the years, she has learnt so much and just become so passionate and I really identified with that."

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