The Green-Schools programme is based on seven steps.
Seven Steps Involved:
1. Green Schools Committee
This directs the school's involvement in the programme. The committee includes the students, teachers, non-teaching staff, management and parents.
2. Enviromental Review
A process assessing the school's environmental impacts in order to identify targets for action and improvements.
3. Action Plan
This sets specific and achievable targets with proposed completion dates that will show real success.
4. Monitoring and Evaluation
Constant monitoring of the programme ensures that progress towards targets is checked, amendments made where necessary and success celebrated.
5. Curriculum Work
Curriculum materials are provided that help integrate environmental issues into lessons.
6. Informing and Involving
Publicity keeps the school and wider community involved and informed through displays, assemblies and press coverage.
7. Green Code
This is a statement of the school's commitment to good environmental habits.
Green Flag |
Introducing Terry the Turtle! Terry was made entirely out of waste by TY students with help from Amber and Jess from Ballyhoura. Our turtle will be on display next weekend at Wellfest in Dublin. Well done to Mrs. O' Riordan, the TY students and all involved. Read more on ilovelimerick.com
On Tuesday 13 th November Clodagh Shanahan and Laura o Connor attended the An Taisce water Ambassador programme. This programme is part of the green schools programme and is supported and sponsored by Irish Water. This course involves educating and promoting the conservation of water in your school community, in your local community and coastal areas. Being part of the Water Ambassador Programme enables the girls to participate in training days, courses and even the possibility of a national award at the end of the year. Clodagh and Laura spent their first course learning the effects of plastics on marine life. In the afternoon the girls went to Iniscarra water treatment plant outside cork city where they learned the stages of water treatment and the processes involved in treating water to make it fit for human consumption. It was a thoroughly informative, enjoyable day and we are really looking forward to spreading all the information we learned to all the staff and students in Scoil Pól.
Collecting our 5th green flag for biodiversity in Radisson Blu in Cork.
Bird Boxes 2016/2017
The Green Schools Committee would like to thank Mr Lenihan and the LCA students for the fantastic bird boxes they made. We hope our feathered friends can feel safe and enjoy their new homes. Members of the committee will feed them on a regular basis and we look forward to attracting as many species of birds as possible.
Biodiversity Flag work in progress
Work has been getting underway on our latest green flag theme of Biodiversity. For the next two years we in Scoil Pól aim to educate the community on biodiversity and on providing natural habitats for all the creatures living in our grounds. In order to do this our first step was to plant trees and hedgerows in order to attract a variety of species to make their homes in our area. Darragh Sheehy in TY has been very busy planting cherry trees and mountain ash trees in the vale View area. These along with smaller hedgerows will attract insects, bees and birds to our environment. We aim to monitor and develop areas for the natural flora and fauna to come to life.
Our Green Schools Fire Logs. Getting ready to donate this batch to St Vincent de Paul.
Recently the Bin It roadshow called into Scoil Pól, see some of the photos from this interactive talk!
Green Schools - Bin It Talk |
This year sees us strive to obtain our 4th Green Flag. The theme for this is Travel, there are 7 steps in the process which include continued development of our green schools code and continuous efforts at litter/waste, water management and energy efficiency. As part of the travel theme we aim to promote a cleaner environment by minimising amount of traffic to and from school on a daily basis. Wednesday is our Walk On Wednesday where students and staff are encouraged to carpool, walk, cycle and park and stride. Surveys are taken every Wednesday to monitor our progress. On Sept 19th as part of our travel initiative we organised a Car Free Day. By May 2015 we will find out if we have obtain our Travel Flag.
Here are some photos from our Car Free Day.
Green Flag - Car Free Day |
Photo Gallery: Tommy O'Donnell's visit to Scoil Pól to raise the Green Flag in 2013