​Green-Schools Committee

Our Green-Schools committee for 2023/2024:

• Ryan
  
• Molly
• Kelsey
• Lachlan
• Tristan
• Taylor
• Oisín
• Ms Scott

Our Green-Schools committee for 2022/2023:

• Molly
• Maddie
• Lachlan
• Tristan
• Taylor
• Oisín
• Natan
• Ms Scott

​Our Green-Schools committee for 2021/2022:

• Josh
• Louise
• Ella
• Caitlin T.
• Emma
• Romy
• Aisha
• Ms Scott

​

Our Green-Schools Flags

Apple Trees

We have been very busy planting apple trees in our school garden as we continue our work towards achieving our Green-Schools flag for Biodiversity.

Big Travel Challenge 2022

We are very excited to begin our Big Travel Challenge this morning. Our 'Hi-Viz Patrol' will be in operation as we try to 'Stride to the Beat' and 'Park 'n' Stride to the Healthy Snacks Inside', as we travel to school across the next fortnight.

​Cycling/ Scooting Workshop

All of the children completed cycling and scooting workshops with our Green-Schools Travel Officer today. They learned lots of important information about road safety and environmental care, and many new cycling/ scooting skills.
​

Vegetable Garden

The Senior Room have been busy today harvesting rhubarb, carrots, parsnips, onions, lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli from our vegetable garden.
​

Walk/ Cycle/ Scoot To School Day

Having designated Thursdays as our weekly 'Walk/ Cycle/ Scoot To School Day', all of the children made a fantastic effort to travel to school using a sustainable mode of transport.
​

Green-Schools Slogan Competition

The children have submitted some wonderful ideas for a new Green-School code to our slogan competition. Our Green-Schools committee have selected the slogan 'Better Environment, Better You; Walk, Cycle or Scoot to School' as the winning entry. Well done to everybody who entered our competition!
​

Green-Schools WOW Campaign

We launched our Green-Schools WOW campaign today to encourage everyone at our school to travel to school using a sustainable mode of transport every Thursday. We held a Witches' Walk and a Green-Schools Quiz, facilitated by our Green-Schools Travel Officer, and the children received lots of fantastic prizes for all of their hard work.
​

Climate Action Week 2021

We were busy this week at Slieveardagh N.S. completing a range of activities for Climate Action Week 2021. We made the decision this week to engage in conversation about climate change and completed many activities while doing so, including taking climate action pledges, participating in our Green Code competition, engaging with virtual workshops, participating in travel surveys, and making an extra effort to travel to school sustainably where possible.
​

​No Energy Day

We held a 'No Energy Day' today as part of our Green-Schools initiative, and to help us to maintain the work of the Energy flag we received previously. We ensured we did not use any electrical devices throughout the day and we made a big effort to travel to school sustainably.
​

​Bike Week 2021

Our Green-Schools committee have planned many activities to celebrate Bike Week 2021 at Slieveardagh N.S.

Gardening

The Junior Room have been busy today taking care of some of the plants in our sensory garden.

Our ​Sensory Garden and Vegetable Garden

Our Sensory Garden and Vegetable Garden have developed greatly over the past number of months. We are delighted to have such wonderful facilities for all of the pupils to utilise.
​

School Garden

The Senior Room have been busy planting cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, carrots and onions in our school garden.

Bug Hotel

The Junior Room did a fantastic job building a bug hotel in our school garden.

​Cycling/ Scooting Workshop

The children enjoyed a fantastic cycling/ scooting workshop today with Green-Schools. They had great fun and learned many new cycling/ scooting skills.
​

Spice Up Your Walk

The children enjoyed a virtual 'Spice Up Your Walk' talk today as part of our 'Walk to School Week' activities.

​

National WOW Day 2021

Everybody made a fantastic effort to walk/cycle to school today to celebrate National WOW Day.

Walk to School Week

​We are delighted to be participating in 'Walk to School Week' this week as part of our Green-Schools initiative, as we work towards achieving our 4th Green-Schools flag - 'Travel'.
​

Gardening

1st and 2nd Class did a fantastic job planting strawberries, rhubarb and gooseberries today.

​

Green-Schools Workshop

The Junior Room and Senior Room were delighted to participate in virtual lessons about fossil fuels today.

​

The Innocent Big Grow

The Senior Room did a fantastic job planting salad leaves, radishes, peas, beetroot and spinach today.

School Garden

The Junior Room were very busy today planting herbs in our school garden.
​

Planting Flowers

Everybody in the Junior Room enjoyed planting a variety of flowers around the school today.

Clean Air Week 2020

Everyone in our school completed many different activities throughout Clean Air Week:

• Learning about air pollution and its impact on our environment
• Creating posters to inform people about idling and its negative impact on the air we breath
• Conducting surveys on the number of vehicles idling close to our school
• Researching the sources of air pollution in our local area
• Beginning a 'No Idling!' campaign to encourage people to pledge to turn off their engines outside our school, where possible
• Updating our Green-Schools notice board with information about idling and results of idling surveys conducted around our school

We have learned a lot of new information this week and found the following information from Green-Schools Ireland to be of particular interest:

​Travel Survey

Our Green-Schools committee were busy conducting travel surveys during Climate Action Week.
​

Climate Action Week 2020

We are all looking forward to participating in Climate Action Week this week.
​

School Garden

The Junior Room have done an excellent job planting bulbs and plants in our school garden.
​

Green-Schools Flag Award

We were delighted to raise our 3rd Green-Schools flag today. Well done to all of the children who worked hard to achieve the 'Water' flag, and to the committee who did a fantastic job coordinating all of the activities. 
​

School Garden

The Senior Room have enjoyed repurposing tyres and hubcaps this week to add to our school garden.
​

School Garden

The Junior Room have done a fantastic job painting pallets for our school garden.
​

​Green-Schools Committee

Our Green-Schools committee for 2020/2021:

• Josh
• Louise
• Ella
• Caitlin T.
• Emma
• Romy
• Aisha
• Dylan
• Ms Scott

​

Green Flag Award

In May 2020 we were delighted to be informed that we were successful in our application for our 3rd Green-School's flag - 'Water'. Well done to all of the children who worked hard to achieve this flag, and to our committee who worked tirelessly to coordinate all of our activities. We look forward to holding a flag raising ceremony soon.
​

Green-Schools Slogan

We recently held a competition to select a new Green-Schools slogan. Everybody thought of a slogan that would raise awareness of the need for water conservation and submitted them to the Green-Schools committee anonymously. The committee then select their favourite ones and held a vote to decide on the overall winner. The winning slogan was:

 Water is a precious jewel. To waste it would be cruel.
​
​

​Green-Schools Activities 2019/2020

• Install water displacement devices into all cisterns in the school to save 250ml of water per flush
• No Energy Day
• Climate Action Week
• 2 Minute Clean
• Creation of water awareness videos
• Entries to Irish Water poster competition
• Participation in Spring Clean
• Collection of WEEE appliances, light bulbs and batteries for recycling
• Water Awareness Day
• 'Walk for Water' event
• Toilet leak tests
• Make Eco-friendly cleaning products for our cleaner to use
• Ensure that 100% of water used for watering plants comes from our water butt
• Concern Water Workshop
• Speakers on the topic of energy from local secondary school 
• Planting of fruits, vegetables and flowers
• Making labels for bins listing items that can be recycled and those that cannot be recycled
• Competition to select new Green-Schools slogan for 'Water'
• Talk by Irish Water

​

Green-Schools Committee

Our Green-Schools committee for 2019/2020:

• Lachlan
• Tristan
• Bridie
• Conor
• Michelle
• Aoibhe
• Jonathan
• Rachel
• Ms Scott

​

Committee Announcement

​This year our green school committee includes Ms.Scott, Lucy Pollard, Lucia Jorge, Jonathan Lowe, Aoibhe Tobin, Michelle Maher, Connor Cuddy, Bridie Fitzpatrick and Tristan Cleere. Currently, we are trying to work towards our Water Flag but also maintain our other 2 flags {Energy and waste}.

At the moment we are doing a lot of work to make people more aware of saving water like making posters, having tips of the month and Green School announcements. Each member of the committee has a particular job like light guards {Checking lights are turned off going to other places}. We have 2 light guards for each room so that makes sure we are saving energy. We do a spring clean also to make sure our surroundings are safer and a cleaner place.

Just outside of Ms. Scott’s room we have a suggestion box and in the Senior Classroom we have a suggestion cup. If you have any ideas on how to save water, you write it down on a piece of paper and put it in. Every day after big break we do Water Warriors. Water Warriors is when a certain group of children go to check taps if they are turned off or if they have leaks. If there is a bathroom or classroom with a tap running that isn’t leaking we make sure it improves. At the moment we are also doing litter picking after big break so, like Water Warriors, a group of people has an allocated week. Basically, they go around the school for about 5 minutes making sure there is no litter and if there is they pick it up.

The committee are also making posters for each tap to make sure they are turned off and for the posters there is a group of 2 making the posters and to make it fair we grouped up a child from the Junior Room with a child from the Senior Room. We have a tip of the month and a reflection of the month too.  At the start of the year we did a survey of how many taps we have and how many were left running. Some of them were running so we are trying to improve. Ms.Scott is also collecting any electrical appliances, light bulbs and batteries so they can be recycled.

​ Our Tip of the month is: Don’t turn on the dishwasher if it’s not full. 

​By Lucy Pollard.

​Green-Schools Activities 2018/2019

• Water audit
• Tap survey
• Leak survey
• Daily water usage survey
• Clean Ireland recycling workshop
• No Energy Day
• Climate Action Week
• 2 Minute Clean
• Creation of water awareness videos
• Entries to Irish Water poster competition
• Fixing leaking taps
• Participation in Spring Clean
• Collection of WEEE appliances, light bulbs and batteries for recycling
• Ban all single-use plastic bottles
• Request water coolers from our lunch providers to replace single-use bottles we receive with our lunches every day
• Establish Water Warrior timetable
• Establish Litter Picking rota
• Create posters to remind people to turn off taps
• Allocate a 'Light Guard' to each classroom
• Planting of fruits, vegetables and flowers
• Entry into the Tidy Schools competition

​

Green-Schools Committee

Our Green-Schools committee for 2018/2019:

• Tristan
• Bridie
• Conor
• Michelle
• Aoibhe
• Jonathan
• Lucia
• Lucy
• Ms Scott

​

Water

We have begun work on our 3rd Green-Schools flag - Water.

Frequent updates on activities can be found on the 'Home' page of our website and on our Twitter feed.

Energy Flag

In June 2018 we were awarded our 2nd Green flag, for our work around energy. 

Well done to our Green-Schools committe for 2017/2018, and to all of the children who made an excellent effort to reduce our energy use and raise awareness of the need for saving energy.
​

Our Green-Schools notice board.

Our Green-Schools Notice Board

Green-Schools Slogan

The committee held a competition to select a new Green-Schools slogan. Everybody thought of a slogan that would raise awareness of the need for energy conservation and submitted them to the Green-Schools committee anonymously. The committee then select their favourite ones and held a vote to decide on the overall winner. The winning slogan was:

​Keep it clean and be green. Stop global warming; it's your last warning.

Our school garden and polytunnel

We are very proud of our school garden and polytunnel in Slieveardagh N.S. The children learn about sustainable living through active learning in the school garden. We plant and harvest a variety of fruit and veg each year. The addition of a polytunnel has enabled us to grow and harvest tomatoes. 

Our school polytunnel