Students at an Oxford school are proving they're lean, green, recycling machines when it comes to eco efforts.

Pupils and staff at Oxford Community School, in Glanville Road, East Oxford, are working to ensure they use every inch of their 22-acre site in an environmentally-friendly way.

Scores of green projects are under way or in the pipeline, ranging from reducing packaging in the school kitchen to looking at the use of solar panels.

And one idea has already proved fruitful - quite literally - the school garden.

A dedicated group of Year Eight pupils spend time before and after school, as well as during their breaks, tending the patch and producing vegetables which have been sold to staff.

Plans are now in place to set up a school business selling the produce and eventually growing vegetables for the school kitchen.

The school has just earned a silver status eco award, the first secondary school in the city to do so.

Pupil Jonathan Tease, 13, said: "We have been trying to grow lots of vegetables and have successfully grown herbs, lettuces, courgettes, pumpkins, tomatoes, beetroots and carrots. It's really good fun."

Design and technology teacher Ian Gordon said: "The students have taken this on with amazing enthusiasm. There are now plans to grow our own fruit."

Pupil Jordan Higgins, 12, said: "Everyone involved enjoys it and it's very important for us all to make the effort to be green.

"We want the Earth to last a bit longer - it's important for our future."

Pat Norman, the school's projects director, added: "We are now working towards the next stage, the Green Flag award."