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                        GREEN SCHOOL- THAT'S OUR RULE!

Green School Committee

Green Awards Ceremony 2016

Green Award Ceremony

On May 26th, Ms Casey our Green schools co-ordinator, Mr Donoghue our care taker , Amie Ryan our Green School secretary and Áine Ebbs our Green Schools chairperson, attended the An Taisce award ceremony in the Helix.Over twenty schools were represented, some getting their first Green flag and three like ourselves receiving their seventh. It was attended by representatives from Dublin South County Council and Wicklow County Council, Irish Water and of course An Taisce. They praised the work of Green Schools in helping the environment and said that Ireland was a world leader in this regard. Lots of other countries come to Ireland to see how Green schools work and a delegation from China is now hoping to set it up in over 10,000 schools! St. Brigid’s was also very honoured to be asked to pilot a new flag…so watch this space!

E. Casey

COW/WOW/SOW Day 2016

COW -Cycle on Wednesday, WOW- Walk on Wednesday and SOW- Scoot on Wednesday took place on Wednesday 17th February.

We all had a lot of fun getting dressed up and travelling to school in different ways.

Green Surveys

Green News February 2016

Green News February 2016

Firstly a huge’ thank you’ to all who participated in our COW/SOW/WOW day on February 18th. We had over 184 ‘wheeled’ vehicles in our school yard that morning and even a few buggies were ‘blinged’ to within an inch of their wheels. Lots of families took the opportunity to reassess how they travel to school and even in a week we have seen more girls walking and scooting to school. As the weather improves we hope to see even more. This is a great way to travel in a green way, cut down on energy consumption and expel some energy by getting fit.

Our annual Green Day will take place on March 16th this year. We hope to see you all in your fifty shades of green. Last year we had some girls dressed as light bulbs, electric cars, a flower pot, to name but a few.

This month we are also publishing our global survey results for the last two years. The results of the 2015/16 survey showed an overall increase in most areas of about 10%. We found that there was a 15% increase in the number of students surveyed who answered "Yes" to the question "Do you save energy whenever you can?" This increase we felt was the result of the curriculum work and green schools actions which were put in place by the staff and green schools committee. The third question in the survey provided scope for improvement as we found that there was just a slight increase of 4% in the number of students who answered "Yes" to the question "Does your family give unwanted items to charity shops". However, there was a 7% decrease in the number of students who responded "Never", which we found was a small improvement. Regarding the awareness amongst students of interdependence there were also more improvements. There was 14% increase in the number of students who answered "Yes" to the question "Do you think you have anything in common with someone living in a poorer part of the world?" with a further 15% of students with an awareness of the question. Finally there was an increase of 18% in the number of students surveyed who had answered "Yes" to the question "Have you ever written to a newspaper or politician about something you believed in?". We feel that this increase was a direct result of certain classes being encouraged to write to a TD about a local litter issue which affected the school.

We also wish to congratulate Aldea who won a trophy and medal for her participation in a singing competition held by The Palmerstown Indian Community. Congratulations!

 Our Assessment for our seventh green flag will take place on Thursday March 10th. Keep your fingers and toes crossed for a good outcome.

  The Green Committee.

Green News October / November 2015

We have had a very busy two months, setting up our committee, evaluating our action plan and coming up with some new ideas! We are still busily recycling paper, corks, cards and stamps. Each girl in our school received a battery box to bring home and already the amount of batteries we are receiving has increased. We are also conducting surveys on our global citizenship awareness and our links to other countries, the results of which we will publish on our website next month. Fifth class cycle safety training will take place after the midterm break. This is run in conjunction with Dublin Congratulations to, Áine, Leah, Amy and Maeve elected Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson and Secretary and P.R.of our Green Schools’ Committee for this year.

 All our Green Girls are busily working towards our seventh green flag for Global Citizenship: Energy. Having conducted a waste audit last term we have decided to tackle waste food in our school especially waste fruit. Each class has been given 20 tokens but each time a full apple or banana is found in the compost bin a token is taken away! The classes with the highest amount of tokens at the end of the month will be awarded

 ‘The Green compost bear’ and maybe something else.... Parents you could help by checking if your daughter is eating all her fruit or maybe a smaller size apple etc. would be better for her. We are also compiling ‘Top Tips’ for stopping food waste at home...if you have any ideas please let us know!

Thank you again for all your support in our green initiatives, especially ‘Walking on Wednesday’... not an easy thing to do on cold wet mornings!

Our cycle safety lessons for Fifth Class have also started and the girls are really enjoying themselves and learning some valuable life lessons. The cost of these lessons is part funded by the Green Money collected on Green Day and each lesson is less than 1Euro!

The Competition for our Green Posters, open to all senior classes, is in full swing. You can choose one particular area or a mixture, writing down some Top Tips. (Of course the Energy theme is the one we want to focus on!) Closing date is Tuesday December 8th. Please make sure your name and class are clearly written on the front of your entry.

Each class has also chosen their Energy Minions! These minions are busy reminding teachers to switch off lights, computers and anything electrical to help save our planet. This job rotates in the classroom so that each girl will get a chance to be the boss of her teacher!

We have also started work on our Blue Star award. This award is given to successful schools, working on European countries and the institutions of the EU.   We have applied and hope we also will be successful. Next month we hope to have some exciting news about a group project between our Green Committee and our Student Council Watch this space!

E. Casey and the Green Committee.

 

Green News September 2015

Welcome to another Green Year in St. Brigid’s Palmerstown. Firstly let me introduce you our new, already wonderful, Green Team. We had our first meeting on Tuesday 2nd of September and elected our chairperson, Áine, our vice-chairperson, Leah, our secretary Amy and a new post for our Green Team that of P.R. person, Maeve. We know they will be excellent leaders in our school and in the community. We have begun our recycling in the school. We recycle paper, batteries, corks, cards, stamps and old mobile phones, so keep them coming in. Each senior class from 3rd to sixth also shows a junior class where and how to recycle. We also make compost in our school from fruit peelings and pencil parings. We also have plenty of tea bags from the staff room!

This year we are continuing our work on our seventh green flag for Global citizenship: Energy. Each class will also have an energy monitor who will turn off lights, computers, CD players etc. when not in use. We will also revisit our energy survey from last year to see what further energy saving measures we can make this year.

 

We have revamped our Walk on Wednesday initiative to include scooting to school. So if you have a scooter please scoot along to St. Brigid’s. Just remember to disembark at the school gates so as not to cause injury to anyone!

Our Global citizenship theme kicked off with a bang this month as we were asked to make a collection of toothbrushes, toothpaste ,baby wipes, pot noodles, sweets and shampoo for the refugees fleeing war torn areas of our world and we want to thank everybody for the huge response we got to that call. Our Green girls organised collection boxes in each class and encouraged all to participate. Well done!

Our school will also be participating in The World’s Largest Lesson which will educate children all over the world about the importance of the Global Goals and give them the knowledge that it is of the utmost importance to hold our leaders accountable. A promise made should be a promise kept!

 

The World’s Largest Lesson will be held in classrooms on every continent during the week of 28th of September. 

We hope to have an eventful year in 2015/16. Thank you again for all your support.

 

E.Casey and the Green Team (Posted Sept '15)

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