Green Schools

News June 2023 - Green Schools Flag Awarded

Fantastic news as our application for our fifth Green Schools Flag has been successful!! We received a highly commended grade for all our efforts. A massive thank you to everyone involved, especially our Green Schools Committee. It has been a great journey of learning and appreciation of our environment and the importance of promoting biodiversity within our environment. We had the opportunity to raise our flag at the Graduation Ceremony that took part in June. Special guests were our Chairperson Fr. Milton and our esteemed neighbour and local farmer Mr. Dermot Winston. 

News February 2023 - Year 2 of  our Green Schools Biodiversity Initiative

The school community has been very busy over the last few weeks putting our Green Schools Action Plan into motion. Following on from the habitat mapping, completed by Ms. Malone's class, opportunities to improve biodiversity measures in the school were identified by pupils throughout the school. The Green Schools Committee liaised with the pupils of the school to create our new School Action Plan for Biodiversity. This includes some of the following measures with each class taking on specific responsibilities


News : January 2023 - YEAR 2 of  our Green Schools Biodiversity Initiative

We have already been working hard to ensure that all the great work achieved during our previous Green Schools Initiatives continues. A renewed focus on litter/ waste, energy usages in the school and also greener transport choices has enabled to get off to a great start this year. Members of the Green Schools Committee having been working hard, since last year,  gathering and collating all the data from our Biodiversity Survey and generating the Habitat Map of the school. Now that the majority of groundworks have been completed, our next step is to generate ideas for the School Action Plan to improve the school communities awareness and ability to promote biodiversity in the locality. There will be a hive of activity over the coming weeks and we are looking forward to setting some goals and trying to reach these over the coming months. 

News June 2022 - A new flag initiative - Biodiversity Flag - YEAR 1

We are well underway with the initial work to gain our fifth flag which is the Biodiversity Flag. We have elected a Green Schools Committee, which consists of pupils from 1st class to 6th class. We have also completed the initial student survey to gauge our understanding of what Biodiversity is about. We have set up our Green School's Noticeboard to keep the school community informed on our progress.  Finally we have begun our educational programme of learning on the area of Biodiversity and some of the classes were lucky enough to complete a Tree Workshop with Robert from An Taisce. The children from 2nd and 3rd class really enjoyed learning about our native trees. 

News October 2021 :Raising of our Fourth Green Schools Flag

This week we raised our fourth Green Schools Flag, which we were awarded back in May 2020. This initiative focused on environmental awarenes around aspects of travel. The pupils and staff worked extremely hard to reach our set targets and we were commended on the quality of our application. We were lucky to have past pupil, and Roscommon U20 County footballer, Mr. Jack Lohan, present to help us raise our flag. It was a joyful occasion and even the sun made an appearance to make the day even more special. Well done to everyone for such a great achivement. 

 


News June 2020: Ballymurray NS Awarded 4th Green Schools Flag

A massive congratulations to all members of the community of Ballymurray NS for achieving this award. Our combined efforts to implement more sustainable modes of transport over the past two years, has been recognised by An Taisce and we have been awarded our 4th Green Schools Flag, which is a fantastic achievement. Please see their correspondence below

 

 Dear Green-Schools Coordinator,

 I am delighted to inform you that your application for the renewal of your Green Flag has been successful. The team at Green-Schools were very impressed with your application, congratulations! Please pass on all our thanks to all the hard-working members of your Green-Schools committees, and everyone in the school.

 You all deserve a huge amount of credit for your efforts. The work that you are doing is really having a positive impact, and when the work of all schools is combined it’s truly amazing!

 Unfortunately, due the current situation, we are not in a position to hold our Green-Schools Awards Ceremonies this year which is such a shame as we absolutely love to celebrate with everyone around the country. As soon as the schools re-open we will ensure you receive your Green Flag and certificate and hope that you can celebrate with a flag raising in your own school when possible.

 In the meantime, please keep an eye on our social media channels where we hope you can join us to celebrate online at the end of the month.

 Congratulations again on your success.

 

 

Cathy Baxter

Green-Schools Manager


News February 2020: Green Schools Idling Initiative

As you may already be aware, we have started a campaign to reduce IDLING outside the school gates. The children have been learning that IDLING is when a cars engine is still running, while the car is stationary. The gases emissions produced by idling can be very harmful for the environment and for human health. 

As a result of this, some of the members of the Green Schools Committee conducted a recent survey outside the school gates at home time. They discovered that approx 35% of the vehicles outside the school at 2.55pm were idling and approx 20% of the vehicles outside the school at 1.55pm were idling. 

In an effort to reduce idling outside the school, the Green School's Committee decide to run a Idling Pledge Campaign. This is where each child will ask their parents to sign an Idling Pledge to commit to turning off their engine when the car is stationary outside the school and elsewhere in the locality. This small change of behaviour could make a significant difference to air quality in our locality. We hope that you can support our efforts. 

 

Other events in relation to IDLING will be taking place over the coming weeks, so please keep checking our updates on the website and the Green School's noticeboard in the school. 

 

Thanks for your support as always. 


News December 2019: Green Schools Target Achieved 20/12/19 !!!

Fantastic News!!

We reached our target of 20% carpooling to school on the last Friday of our Bring A Friend on Friday initiative!!

This is a great achievement for our school. We already have a large proportion of pupils travelling to school by bus, which already reduces our carbon footprint and now we have reduced it even further.

 

Well done to all the pupils and many thanks to those parents who assisted in the carpooling :)

 

Keep an eye on our website for more upcoming events for our Green Schools Travel Flag campaign.



News December 2019 :Green Schools Carpooling Update

Before our Green Schools Bring a Friend on Friday initiative began in December, 4% of pupils carpooled to school. 

 

We are pleased to announce that this increased to 12% on our first Friday 06.12.19

 

We are now aiming for 15%  - 20% over the next two weeks. Please help us to achieve this.

 

The Green Schools Committee