Congratulations!

Well done to all of our prizewinners from the Green Schools colouring, poster and slogan competitions. See pictures of some of the winners below. Their works of art are on display. 

 

Action Day: February 2016

Plans are underway for our Action Day on Wednesday February 17th. To help us raise awareness, our Infant classes are doing a colouring competition, 1st and 2nd class are going to take part in a poster competition and 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th class are going to take part in a slogan competition. The winning entries will be displayed in the Halla. We have lots of exciting things planned for the day.

Curriculum Work: January 2016

All of our classes are doing some curriculum work on the topic of water during this school year to support our Green Flag work. Below are some pictures of our Senior Infants’ responses to their lessons on Water and some pictures of our Junior Infants enjoying Water Play.

Water Butt and Water Meter: November 2015

Pat has installed our new Water Butt. This will allow us to harvest rain water which can be used for watering plants and cleaning which will, of course, further reduce our water consumption in school. Our water meter has also been installed but unfortunately is not operational yet. This will allow us to monitor and record our water usage. We are hoping that we will also be able to calculate the amount of water we are saving due to our actions to date. Below you will see some photos of our Green Team and the Junior Infants learning about these new devices.

 

Green School Water Audit: October 2015

Following on from our Water Audit last year, the Green Team stayed back after school today to check all of the sinks and toilets for leaks. We needed a quiet, empty school to do this research. We used our eyes and ears to check for drips, damp spots, puddles, trickles and gurgles. We also put food colouring in all of the cisterns (where possible) and tomorrow we will check the toilet bowls to see if the coloured water has travelled. This would be a sign of a leak as the toilets are not in use over night. Our results will be passed on to Mr. O’ Connell and Pat, our caretaker, to see if an problems detected can be fixed.

 

Green Team 2015-2016

Our Green Team for 2015-2016 are as follows…

Erin Kelleher and Amy Cashman – 6th class

Daniel O’Keeffe – 5th class

Ellie Twomey – 4th class

Mark O’Keeffe – 3rd Class

Ms. O’Halloran and Ms. Flanagan – Teachers

Fergal Manley – Parent

We look forward to working within our school to conserve water and help the environment. We hope that our work results in reduced costs for our school and getting our Green Flag for the Water theme in May.

 

Water Audit

Your Green School Committee has been busy recently. The Water Audit of our school is now complete and the results  are displayed on the Green School Noticeboard.

Hippo Bags

All of the accessible cisterns of the toilets in our school have now been fitted with Hippo Bags. These devices fit in the water cistern of our toilets and are filled with water causing them to expand and displace volume in the tank. This means that every time you flush the toilet, less water is used. Some of our Green Team are pictured here checking our “Hippo Bags”.

 

Walk for Water 2015

See below for an account of our Walk for Water in Gougane Barra, written by two 6th class pupils and also some photos from our day.

On the 22^nd of March, 2015, eight children from sixth class went to Gougane Barra for the Green Schools’ Walk for Water campaign. At 7:45 we arrived at the school to go on the bus and leave to Gougane Barra. The bus journey took around an hour and forty five minutes. We got there at ten o’clock. When we arrived we went to fill up our bottles. We filled up six litres of water each to take on our walk.  We were then supplied with backpacks and put our bottles inside the backpacks. After this, we set off on our walk around Gougane Barra. There was a forest path beside a river.  We stopped twice on the path and people told us about the poor countries that can’t supply clean water and where the people must use dirty water in their daily lives.  Soon after we met a man who told us of the local wildlife and animals you can find there. As the walk progressed, the path started going uphill as the landscape was turning into a mountain. It took a lot of effort and stamina climbing only a tiny portion of the tough journey ahead. A little break was then necessary and we had something to eat and drink but in a matter of time we began the most difficult part of the trek, climbing up huge rocks and steep slopes.  It felt endless as everyone was tired and worn out.  Most people were stopping at that point to catch their breath. Luckily we had an opportunity to stop and prepare for another long trek. We went along a few bridges and slopes everyone was exhausted at this point. One of our classmates was starting to get ahead of the group and another almost fell off the mountain but luckily was saved by one of the other bus drivers! Walking down to the bottom was reassuring  after the energy draining uphill walk. We started walking down the mountain.  The view was gorgeous.  Reaching the bottom we walked a small walk to the end.  One of our classmates was fourth to reach the end goal. The people who came up with the campaign gave out food and drinks for eventually reaching the end. After half an hour we left on the bus. For doing so well we stopped at a garage and the teachers bought us ice-cream. It was a long journey back to school but we enjoyed our day at Gougane Barra.

By Katelyn and James 6^th class

Fifth Class Trip to the Glashaboy Waterworks

On Thursday, 12th of February, 5th class, accompanied by Mr. Scanlon, Joan and Fergal Manley, went on a visit to the Glashaboy Waterworks. They toured the facility and learned a lot about how are water is cleaned and treated before being piped into our schools and homes. To see photos of this trip, take a look at Mr. Scanlon’s page.

Green Code for Water

At a recent Green-School Committee meeting, we agreed to adopt the following green code:

“In our school we do our best to appreciate water, to use water sensibly and to conserve water where possible”

Each class will get a copy of the code to display.

 

Green-Schools Water Forum 2015

On Friday the 6th of February, five members of our Green Team set off to attend the 2015 Water Forum at the Vienna Woods Hotel in Glanmire. We were delighted to be one of eight schools represented at this event as there was quite a long waiting list of schools hoping to attend. Erin Kelleher, Amy Cashman, Daniel O’Keeffe and Ellie Twomey were great ambassadors for our school and really got involved. We listened to a presentation from a model school who have already received their flag for the Water theme. We discussed the water cycle and watched a demonstration which showed just how little of the world’s water is drinkable. We then discussed our own schools and our ideas for the water theme. We drew a plan for our dream school. Ours included a swimming pool! Have a look at photos from the day below and a piece written by Erin and Amy all about it.

 

GREEN SCHOOOLS WATER FORUM

On Friday the 6^th of   February   4   members of the green team committee and Ms. Flanagan went to Vienna woods hotel to a water forum. We learned ….

97% of the Worlds water is in seas and oceans and less than 1% of the World’s water   is in rivers, ponds and drinking water. When turning on a hose 500 litres is used in 5 minutes.

To make 1 cup of coffee 140 litres of water is used.                                

To make 1 litre of milk 1000 litres of water are used.                                           

      There were several different schools there.

We did loads of fun games. We then did a plan of some improvements of our school such as…………

• Installing water butts
• Getting a water meter
• Getting a water mascot
• Having a blue day

  By Amy Cashman and Erin Kelleher

 

Green-School Committee

On Tuesday, November 18^th, our new Green School Committee had their first meeting. As you may be aware, our school has already been awarded three green flags for the themes of Litter & Waste, Global Citizenship and Energy.

The theme we will be working on for the next two years is Water. This is certainly a topical issue and we look forward to learning a lot about our consumption of Water and how this impacts the environment.

Our new committee members are as follows: Ms. N. O’Halloran, Ms. C. Flanagan, Mr. Fergal Manley (Dad of Kate in second class and Ryan in Senior Infants), Kaelan Skillington (6^th), Jack O’Callaghan (6^th), Amy Cashman (5^th), Erin Kelleher (5^th), Ellie Twomey (3^rd). Daniel O’Keeffe is our 4^th class committee member but was not present for the photo. There were lots of exciting ideas put forward at our meeting and we look forward to sharing them with you soon!

 

 

Congratulations to the 2013/14 Green Flag Committee whose hard work and dedication have earned the school another Green Flag. This flag was awarded for the Energy Theme. This is a wonderful achievement and we look forward to raising this flag before the end of the current school year. Well done to The Green Flag Committee. The members are,
Teachers: Ms. Flanagan and Ms. O’Halloran
Parents: Michelle Dunlea and Timi McCarthy
Sixth Class pupils : David Hyde and Oisin Hedderman
Fifth Class: David O’Connell
Fourth Class: Senan Ryan
Third Class: Penny Cronin.
Recently members of the Green Team attended the Green Flag conferring ceremony at Silversprings Hotel.
Scroll down along this page to view a copy of our newest certificate. Additional photographs will be uploaded in the next few days.

Our Second Green Flag was raised on Friday June 22, 2012. We were very proud that Mr. Sean Kelly MEP came to hoist the flag. The attendance included members of The Board of Management, parents, the green flag committe and our proud staff and pupils. Mr. Kelly congratulated all who had contributed so much to ensure the delivery of the second Green Flag. He was especially delighted to be associated with the European and Global Citizenship Flag. The school community is indebted to all who work so hard and accomplish so much for the school and in particular all who are involved in the Green School and Health Promoting School Committees.