On Tuesday 26th June, St. Brendans PS proudly raised its 4th Green Flag on its
flagpoles outside the school. This flag was awarded for its Green Travel initiative.
The sun was shining (Buiochas le Dia) as the whole school community gathered outside
on the front grass area. Guests invited to the ceremony were Michael Loughnane (Chairman
of Birr Town Council-and Dad to Charlie in Junior Infants), Mieke our An Taisce officer,
Tony McLoughlin (Birr Tidy Towns) and VIP guest was Maria Donegan who cam back
to raise the flag. Our ceremony included a few words from our guests on the significance
of our achievement and then the 4 flags were raised, with 6th class boys reading the green
code for each theme. Finally it came to our latest flag. Leon Hogan read the code which he
designed and to a mighty cheer, Maria Donegan raised the flag.
Cue Party time…Our fantastic parents association had organised for the ice-creamvan
to come and give everyone a cone (with green syrup). Mr.Crofton had organised for
Piotr and Nicky (5th and 6th) to bring in their DJ gear and the boys played a set that
had the whole school on the dance (grass ! ) floor. La brea glas a bhi ann !
Wednesday 20th June was listed as National Cycle on Wednesday day. With not much notice
and a lot of other activities on, we still manged to have over 25 bikes in school on the day.
Mieke from An Taisce led the boys in some cycle games on the yard and then took a group
of 14 senior boys for a very informative puncture repair workshop. The winning pair of
boys in the workshop were Kieran Riley and Alex Smith. Well done boys!
Remember to stay safe on bikes and wear your jacket and helmet always..
Green flag for travel to be raised on Tuesday 26th June..hope to see you there!
Even though we are working towards our second Green Flag by reducing our energy consumption we also continue with our efforts to reduce waste and litter in the school. We do regular bin checks to make sure each class room is sorting there rubbish properly. We also encourage students and teachers to bring in waste free lunches and we reuse whatever we can.
Green Schools is an international environmental education programme that was the brainchild of FEE, the Foundation for Environmental Education. It is a means of encouraging school-going children to be more aware of their environment and determine what they can do to protect and enhance it. It is a controlled mechanism for taking environmental issues from the curriculum and applying them daily within the school.
In Ireland the scheme is run in conjunction with local authorities and is managed by An Taisce. Following the successful establishment of the seven steps of Green Schools the school can apply for a Green Schools award. This award comes in the form of a Green Flag that can be displayed in the school. A certificate is also awarded to the school as well as having a Green Schools logo to print on headed notepaper. The award lasts for two years and must be renewed on a bi-annual basis thus encouraging the school and its pupils to constantly evolve and improve.
For further information from the An Taisce website click here.
