Our Green Schools Programme
In St. Patrick's Junior School we are very passionate about taking care of our planet and our 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 the Green Schools Programme in our school. 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 motto, composed by one of our pupils is:
"We all must care for this earth that we share."
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.
We keep our school grounds looking well and do regular litter patrols to keep our grounds clean. To reduce our Litter and Waste, we recycle paper, card, plastic and batteries. We also carry out a regular electrical waste collection to take to Coolmine Recycling Centre. Each classroom has a recycling bin. We also do lots of composting of tea bags from the Staff Room and fruit from lunches. We are currently setting up a wormery (péistlann) to improve our composting work in school. We have just purchased leaf mulch cages for composting also.
We work hard to save energy. We remember to turn off our lights and electrical appliances when we're leaving the room, we wear extra layers instead of turning up the heat, and we turn off our taps to save water. We harvest rainwater for use in the summer months.We remember to check for leaky taps, we take showers instead of baths, we collect rainwater for our plants and we put plastic bottles in our toilet cisterns to save 1 litre for each flush!
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 petrol fumes. We want to combat Climate Change and help prevent global warming. We created a Climate Action Pledge, on display in our PE hall, 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 have a wild flower garden to attract butterflies, bees and other pollinators. In second class, we have just set up a new insect hotel.
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 is in reducing our waste and improving our composting initiatives. We have learned that we have many connections with different countries around the world, from our own familial origins to where our food and clothes come from. We are all connected!
Importantly, we no longer receive single-use plastic bottles of water as part of our school lunches. We use reusable flasks instead. This has helped us dramatically reduce the plastic waste in our school.
http://www.greenschoolsireland.org/
We hope you will all join us in taking care of our beautiful planet! 🌍💚
