Our Green Schools Programme
In St. Patrick's Junior School we are very passionate about taking care of our planet and the local environment.
In this endeavor, we participate in Green Schools run by An Taisce. We have undertaken a huge range of initiatives to help us become a more sustainable and environmentally-friendly community. We also have a Sustainable Environment School Policy.
Our Green Schools Committee is responsible for the overall running of our Green Schools Programme. This committee is made up of representative pupils and staff, and is coordinated by Ms. Owens. We believe that small changes can make a big difference and we all have a role to play as we strive to become more responsible Global Citizens.
Our new Green Schools Code, composed by our Second Class pupils is:
"Change your behaviour, be an energy saver!"
We already have 6 green flags for Litter and Waste, Energy, Water, Travel, Biodiversity, and Global Citizenship - Litter and Waste. We maintain the work undertaken so far to achieve these flags while we work on our new theme of Global Citizenship - Energy.
We work hard to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle in our school. Ms. Winter encouraged our school community to gather unwanted clothes to be reused this summer. Ms. Murray and the children reduce our food waste by feeding it to the worms in our wormery (péistlann) every Wednesday, and the worms then make compost! We also have leaf mulch cages for composting.
We learn about the importance of throwing our rubbish into a bin and NEVER on the ground. Ms. Green's class are taking part in the Picker Pals programme. Every week one child gets to bring home the Picker Pals pack and spend some time picking up litter with an adult. We got a new box of litter pickers and do regular litter patrols. Our pupils love picking up litter so much that a class can win an extra opportunity to go litter-picking as a prize on our Attendance Award Spinner!
We work hard to save energy. June is our Low Energy Month! We remember to turn off our lights and electrical appliances when we're leaving the room, and we turn off our taps to save water.
We teach the children that walking, scooting or cycling are the best ways to travel because not only do they keep us healthy but they also help keep our air free from fumes. We want to combat Climate Change and help prevent global warming. We created a Climate Action Pledge, which shows a small change each class will make to help keep our planet safe and healthy. We promote WOW (Walk On Wednesdays), which means that every Wednesday we will all make an extra effort to walk (or cycle or scoot) to school.
The children regularly plant seeds, bulbs and trees on our school grounds and in our wider community to support biodiversity. We plant wildflowers to attract butterflies, bees and other pollinators.
We learn about where our food comes from, the Bord Bia quality mark, and Fairtrade. We took part in the One Million Trees planting campaign and the Leave No Trace anti-litter workshops. Craig Benton is supporting us in reducing our waste and improving our composting initiatives.
Importantly, we no longer receive single-use plastic bottles of water as part of our school lunches. We use reusable flasks instead. We have switched our big lunches to fully compostable hot lunches also. This has helped us dramatically reduce the plastic waste in our school, which was a target of our action plan.
We learn that we are all connected as global citizens, and explore our connections with other parts of the world.
We hope you will all join us in taking care of our beautiful planet! 🌍💚
Please explore our website posts below.
http://www.greenschoolsireland.org/
