Auntie Duck Awards

Auntie Duck Awards Programme

The Auntie Duck Award Programme is here to award your school Bronze, Silver or Gold to recognise the achievements made by your schools to improve air quality.

Bronze Award

To achieve the Bronze Award, your school needs to have completed the following;

Delivered two Auntie Duck lessons and read the story book to a year group.

All schools who achieve the Bronze award are sent they physical copy of the Auntie Duck Story Book as well as an electronic copy of their award.

To submit for an award, please provide supporting evidence that you have delivered two lessons and read the book to a year group. This can be in the form of, but not limited to;

  • - Photos
  • - Video
Auntie Duck Bronze Award

Silver Award

To achieve the Silver Award, your school needs to have completed the following;

Delivered three Auntie Duck lessons and read the story book to a year group.

All schools who achieve the Silver award are sent a “How to make your own Auntie Duck Finger Puppet” guide and an electronic copy of their award.

To submit for an award, please provide supporting evidence that you have delivered three lessons and read the book to a year group. This can be in the form of, but not limited to;

  • - Photos
  • - Video
Auntie Duck Silver Award

Gold Award

To achieve the Gold award, your school needs to have completed the following;

Achieved the Silver award in a previous year.

Must have delivered at least four Auntie Duck Lessons to a year group.

You can only achieve the Gold award within your second year of delivering the Auntie Duck book and lessons to a year group. Therefore we expect to be rewarding schools with the grant within the 2026/27 school year.

All schools who achieve the Gold award are sent an electronic copy of their award and stickers for the participating classes.

To submit for an award, please provide supporting evidence that you have delivered four lessons and read the book to a year group. This can be in the form of, but not limited to;

  • - Photos
  • - Video
Auntie Duck Gold Award

The first five schools within each Local Authority Area to achieve the Gold Award will receive a grant of £150 to go towards an air quality initiative.

Ideas for the grant

  • - Installing bike or scooter racks to encourage students to wheel or scoot to school.
  • - Contributing towards paying your WOW – Walk to school challenge membership.
  • - Planting trees and hedges in the playground to support improving air quality.
  • - Buying anti idlying signs and banners for outside your school.

Eligibility Criteria

  1. In order to receive this grant, your school must follow the national education system.
  2. Your school must be based within the West Midlands Combined Authority area (Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull, Walsall or Wolverhampton).
  3. You must have spent your grant funding by March 2027.

What we're unable to fund

  • (a) paid for lobbying, which means using the Grant to fund lobbying (via an external firm or in-house staff) intended to influence Parliament, government or political activity or attempting to influence legislative or regulatory action;
  • (b) using the Grant to enable one part of government to challenge another on topics unrelated to the agreed purpose of the Grant;
  • (c) using the Grant to petition for additional funding;
  • (d) expenses, such as for entertaining, specifically aimed at exerting undue influence to change government policy;
  • (e) input VAT reclaimable by the Recipient from His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC);
  • (f) payments for activities of a political or exclusively religious nature;
  • (g) interest payments or service charge payments for finance leases;
  • (h) gifts;
  • (i) statutory fines, criminal fines or penalties;
  • (j) payments for work or activities which the Recipient, or any associated entity, has a statutory duty to undertake or that are fully funded by other sources;
  • (k) bad debts to related parties;
  • (l) the depreciation, amortisation or impairment of assets; and
  • (m) novel or contentious payments [without the prior written consent of the Funder]. This includes any payment that could cause embarrassment to the Funder (for example, any excessive severance payment, unfair dismissal costs or other compensation).

Submit for an award

Submit your entry for an award via this form