Green Schools

Green-Schools, known internationally as Eco-Schools, is an international environmental education programme, environmental management system and award scheme that promotes and acknowledges long-term, whole school action for the environment through the implementation of the Seven Step Methodology.

We have a proud tradition here in Presentation Primary School of participating in the Green Schools initiative. We began the Green schools programme in 2005 and to date have successfully achieved the following flags:

Litter and waste
Energy
Water
Travel
Biodiversity
Global Citizenship: Litter and Waste
Global Citizenship: Energy

We are busy preparing for our next An Taisce Green Schools Flag. Global Citizenship Marine Environment.

School Year 2024 – 2025

February

A massive well done to all those that entered the Green Code Poster Completion and congratulations to our winners. We had a huge response to the competition.

We also completed our plastic marine project this month. The premise of the project was to take the daily plastic packing used in the school for one week and use it to create an ocean mural. The school mural is now displayed proudly in the main hall way and I think everyone will agree that it is a very striking piece.

Finally Sixth Class received their Aquariums at the beginning of this month, they will care for them for six weeks and had a very informative talk by Jai from Oceanics in Tramore. We look forward to hearing about the project.

January

It has been a very busy month for Green Schools!

The girls have been raising awareness throughout the school. We began by organising a whole school assembly where the committee spoke so articulately about the effects of litter and pollutants on the Marine Environment. They also launched their Green code and set up a Green Code Poster competition and revealed or upcoming plastic marine project. More to come on this next month!

The infant classes braved the cold weather this month and got out into the garden and made some bird feeders for the birds.

December

This month some of the senior committee members have been exploring micro plastics in class and their effects on the environment, so some committee members wanted to write to our lunch provider Fresh Today to discuss how we could reduce the packaging provided with our hot meals.

November

The committee met twice this month and our focus was to brainstorm and create our Green Code. The girls brought back their ideas to their classes and asked them to help create a catchy slogan that would become our code. We finally settled on – Be the Solution, Join the Revolution, to Reduce Marine Pollution.

Our Picker Pals renewal packs have arrived and the 2^nd Classes are excited to get started.

October

The committee organised a WOW to mark ‘National Walk to School Week’.

We also launched an awareness campaign for the proper use of our school bins. The committee had noted that more rubbish was making its way into the yard. We got out and did a litter pick and brought what we collected around to classes. We wanted to highlight our responsibility to keep our school and in turn our local environment clean.

September

We have re-established our Green School Committee and we have welcomed three new girls form 3^rd Class- Hollie, Emma and Aisling. Our first matter of business was to audit our classroom bins and check if each class had their energy monitor sign in place.

School Year 2023 – 2024

May/ June

Many classes are focussing on the theme of water at this time of year and the committee have asked classes to join with them and engage curriculum work based on the theme of Marine Environment. We had our final meeting for the school year and reviewed where we are and what we hope to achieve in the next school year. The girls are excited for year 2 of our journey.

April

The committee has been discussing ways to inform and involve classes in our current topic of Global Citizenship – Marine Environment. We have also been continuing to monitor other areas such as litter, energy use in the school, biodiversity and travel. The girls wish to organise some WOW days as the weather improves and to ask classes to get outside and plant in the school garden.

March

Our Green School Committee have been busy preparing our School Garden for the coming year. We have done some weeding and we will start to plant our vegetables when the weather improves.

Thanks to Ms McKeon and Ms Landers for our wonderful map of the world. We are truly a global school, with girls and boys from all corners of the world.

February

At this month’s meeting the girls reported that they noticed litter present on the driveway on the approach to the school and also in the yard. We decided to do a litter pick as a committee and then visited classes to discuss the litter present.

January

A New Year and a new action plan! The committee are working this month on our Action plan and exploring initiatives we could try over the next two years to bring awareness of the topic of the Marine Environment. The girls are so enthusiastic and have some great ideas.

December

The committee met to evaluate our survey results and graph the results which were shared with the classes and put up on the Green school noticeboard.

Senior Infants and 4^th Classes began work this month on the Sea Keepers Project.

November

This month the committee met to discuss our environmental review and to draft our survey. The committee members visited classes 3^rd– 6^th to administer the survey.

2^nd Class began work on the picker pals programme.

October

Our first job was to organise a WOW- walk on Wednesday to mark National Walk to School Week. We had a great turn out and are looking forward to organising more.

We also did some monitoring this month on energy practise in the school and delivered each class an energy monitor sign for their class.

A big well done to all the classes that took part in Climate Action Week. The school was a hive of activity with all classes doing their bit to learn about climate action and changes we can make as a school to save energy. Remember – If it’s Not in Use, Turn off the Juice! We can all play our part and help reduce our energy use!

The Green School Committee did a fantastic job setting daily challenges for the school on the intercom such as nominating an energy monitor in each class, asking classes to research Sustainable goals and informing us about climate issues.

Well done, girls!

September

We established a new Green school Committee. We meet every month and discuss Green school issues. Committee members created fact files on themselves and helped set up the green school notice board. They also returned to class and shared that we are currently working on our eight Green School Flag – Global Citizenship Marine Environment.

We are excited to bring awareness of Marine issues to our school community and learn more about our oceans over the coming school years.

School Year 2022 – 2023

June

On Tuesday 13th June we held a flag raising ceremony for the 2 flags we achieved this year – the Green School Flag and the Amber Flag for Promoting Positive Mental health. The members of each committee were also presented with their certificates for all of their hard work this year.Well done to everyone involved.

January

Our Green School Committee have been busy preparing our School Garden for the coming year. We will start to plant our vegetables when the weather improves. They have also been busy litter-picking. 4^th class Mrs O Dwyer won a competition and enjoyed 2 online storytelling sessions from Arran Towers on our Green School’s theme of Global Citizenship: Litter and Waste.

November

Thanks to Ms McKeon and Ms Landers for our wonderful map of the world. We are truly a global school, with girls and boys from all corners of the world.

October

A big well done to all the classes that took part in Climate Action Week. The school was a hive of activity with all classes doing their bit to learn about climate action and changes we can make as a school to save energy. Remember – If It’s Not in Use, Turn off the Juice! We can all play our part and help reduce our energy use!

Waterford’s mayor, Clr. Jason Murphy visited our school on Thursday 27th October. Members of the Green School committee spoke about their cookbook “Let’s Grow Together”, for which they received a School of Excellence Sustainability Award last year. They also presented the mayor with a copy of the cookbook. It was fantastic to have our hall back in use and to welcome Waterford’s First Citizen.

Our School Green Code – Think Global, Start Local- there’s no Planet B!

September

Thank you to everyone who took part in our ‘Walk on Wednesday’ on 21st September to celebrate ‘National Walk to School Week’.

School Years 2021 – 2022

We are currently working on the Global Citizenship Litter and Waste flag.

Children from various classes have been involved in:

Green School Committee
Renewal of the flags achieved to date
Planning for the various flags
Planting Spring Bulbs and Vegetables
Harvesting Vegetables and Fruit
Baking Apple Crumble with fruit gathered from trees
Maintaining indoor plants
Feeding the birds
Making bird feeders
Observing and identifying garden birds
Butterfly Garden and Wildflower Patch
Insect Hotel
Log Pile
Other agencies e.g. Heritage in Schools, Waterford Area Partnership
Litter-picking
Anti-littering posters
Making Junk Art robots
WOW – Walk on Wednesday
Completing Nationality surveys with their classes
Completing projects based on different countries
Tasting food from different countries
Organising colouring competitions

Spring 2022

Mrs McCarthy’s 2^nd class and Miss Duke’s 6^th class have been working very hard on a sustainability project as part of the School of Excellence Award. Their journey began in the springtime, when our Green School Committee completed a survey in our school and were shocked to realise that a lot of our students in our school didn’t know where their food came from. They investigated this and realised we were importing a lot of food. They wanted to help the environment by reducing the food miles associated with the food being eaten and they also wanted to show people that it’s quite east to grow your own food, from which you can make delicious dishes. They prepared the school garden, and together with their buddies, started growing lots of things. They then worked with Ms Fetton to create lots of tasty and healthy dishes from our garden.

School Year 2020 – 2021

As part of the Green Flag process, we held our Green Day remotely on February 17th 2021. Pupils in every class completed activities on the topic of litter and waste, and were invited to take part in a poster competition based on our Green Code – “3R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) to save our 1 World. ”

Well done to the over 100 girls and boys who entered the competition, and to our 3 winners – see photographs below.

Click here to watch our video Green Day 2021

Well done to everyone who took part in our WOW – Walk on Wednesday on May 12th 2022. What a great turnout – over 100 pupils from Junior Infants – 6th Class!