St Francis of Assisi Primary School began our Green School journey when the school was established in 2008. Green-Schools, known internationally as Eco-Schools, is coordinated by the Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE). Eco-Schools is currently operating in 62 countries worldwide with over 16 million students taking part. The Green School is now an integral part of our delivery of the SESE and SPHE curriculum.
“The truth is: the natural world is changing. And we are totally dependent on that world. It provides our food, water and air. It is the most precious thing we have and we need to defend it.” David Attenborough
By participating in the Green School programme, we are creating awareness of the need to care for our environment and locality within our school community. Green-Schools’ mission is to protect planet Earth – our shared home to which we all belong – and we want everyone involved!
Our Green School Committee members are class representatives from Junior Infants to 6th class who conduct surveys, establish and implement the action plan with the assistance of teachers who are the Green School Coordinators. Specialists from the Heritage Schools Organisation regularly give workshops on the theme we are working on. Our committee members went to the Helix to receive our new flag for Global Citizenship: Litter and Waste.
Our school has been awarded six Green School flags which all have slogans created by the students themselves.
Here are more details about the flags and how you can help.
1. Litter and Waste: Keep our school litter free.
Aim: Our aim is to keep our community litter free, reduce the amount of waste we generate, reuse items we can and to recycle as much waste as possible.
Actions:
- When you are buying food, try and buy items with less packaging or with packaging that can be recycled.
- Use your green bin to recycle your paper, cardboard, plastics and cans.
- Reuse drink bottles for drinks with your lunch. Use a lunch box instead of plastic lunch bags.
- Use the classroom recycle and general waste bins correctly.
- In the staffroom the staff use the compost bin for organic waste to feed the worms in the wormeries.
- Use the two bins provided near the school buildings for your litter.
- If there is no bin, put it in your pocket until you get home and then use the bin. Don’t be a litterbug! We want to live in a clean environment.
2. Water: Water is great to drink so don’t let it go down the sink.
Aim: Our aim is to conserve water as it is a precious resource. Only 1% of the world’s water can be used as drinking water. As human beings we rely on water to drink and survive.
Actions:
- In school we check our taps for leaks and get them fixed. We don’t waste water by leaving the tap run. We put the soap on our hands first and then turn on the water when ready to wash our hands and remember to turn them off. Many of our toilets have the dual flush and we try to use the flush with less water. We use a basin or the sink plug when washing art materials.
- Check out taptips.ie for information on how to save water at home and in the garden. We want a clean and healthy water environment.
3. Energy: Switch it off, save energy. Last out, lights off.
Aim: Our aim is to conserve energy by making sure we never needlessly waste energy.
Actions:
- Turn off lights when leaving a room. Buy energy saving bulbs.
- We turn off our whiteboards when leaving the room or not in use.
- We make sure we keep our school at the right temperature. Many people keep their thermostat too high. Check yours and if its above 20ºC turn it down. Lowering your thermostat by just 1ºC will knock 10% off your heating bill.
- Switch appliances off rather than leaving them on standby. This will save up to 20% of your appliances’ energy use.
4. Travel: Walk, cycle or take the bus, all of this is good for us.
Aim: We aim to increase the number of pupils walking, cycling, scooting, park ‘n’ stride (park a distance from the school and walk), carpooling (more than 1 person sharing a journey) or using public transport, which will help the environment and ease congestion by reducing the number of private cars arriving at the school gates.
Actions:
- We promote sustainable transport modes (walking, cycling, carpooling or park ‘n’ stride) to reduce our impact on the environment by reducing our emissions and air pollution.
- We promote green travel to improve pupils’ safety, health and fitness. The journey to school is an ideal way for children to take part in regular physical activity, to interact with their peers, and to develop the road sense children need as pedestrians and cyclists.
- We have competitions throughout the year to promote green travel such as Scoot to School Day.
5. Biodiversity: Please protect nature, don’t leave it ‘til later.
Aim: A high level of diversity among plants, animals and all living things is essential for maintaining a healthy functioning environment, fit for human life. This includes diversity within species, between species and diversity of ecosystems. We aim to nurture biodiversity in our school grounds and educate children to do so in their home and locality.
Actions:
- Our students plant spring bulbs, seasonal garden planters and vegetables and fruits in our polytunnels. Examples of our crops are potatoes, peas, onion, garlic, carrots and strawberries and blueberries.
- Our school has facilitated an awareness campaign on the importance of biodiversity. Our students encourage biodiversity as they look after bird feeders and restock them with seeds. We created a ‘No Mow’ area that will have wildflowers and long grass to support the bees.
- Our committee has planted trees and plants in the school grounds. Planting native trees is a great way to address the Climate Crisis and Biodiversity Emergency in one fell swoop!
6. Global Citizenship: Litter and Waste: Let’s band together so we can stay here forever.
Aim: This is a maintenance theme which enables schools to discover how Green-Schools work has positively influenced people and environments worldwide while revising the previous Litter and Waste theme.
Actions:
- Our committee ran an education campaign centred on the Global Goals, sustainable development and raising awareness on how looking after our environment aids people all over the world.
- We promote and facilitate ‘Active Citizenship’ with workshops and action days such as our ‘Walk for Water’ which raised money for the Wells of Life Charity in Uganda.
- We created the Star Trophy that promotes and rewards Green Schools practices and is given out monthly at assembly.
- We created wormeries for our organic waste making an improvement in the Litter & Waste management in our school
