Kilglass Green Schools Committee
Kilglass National School prides itself on being a green school. We have been involved in the Green Schools programme for the last seven years. Our school received its first green flag for reducing litter and waste in our school in May 2015, we earned our green flag for energy in 2017 and we have been awarded our third green flag for water this May 2020.
Our Green Schools Committee this year consisted of our Green Schools Coordinator – Mrs Braithwaite, Chairman – Ryan, Secretary – Chloe, Aine, Niamh, Jessica, Daragh and Dennis (6thClass); Naomi, Leona, Helena, Olivia and Róise (5th Class); Abigail, Alanna, Lynn, Kaci , Amy, Savannah, Ryan, Jack, Adam, Mausey and Jayden (4thClass).
Our Committee consists of a group of very enthusiastic students from the Senior room who care for the environment by ensuring that we do not litter and that we take care to reduce, re-use and recycle as much as possible. Every classroom has a separate bin for landfill, recycling and composting. Our compost is used in our Polytunnel. We arrange an annual collection of clothes for recycling. We collect cardboard packaging for use in our Junk Art station in the Junior room. We also conserve energy by ensuring that lights are switched off, devices are plugged out and not left on standby and making sure that doors are kept closed.
Our School’s Green Code is:
Water Conservation
We have been working very hard over the past couple of years on the theme of water conservation.
While working towards our water flag we tried to increase awareness of the importance of water conservation in the school and in our homes. We carried out a water use at home survey and sent all homes a tip sheet on how to conserve water. We carried out an audit of water use in our school, through collecting water meter readings. We checked for leaks, replaced leaky taps with push taps, installed hippo bags in the toilet cisterns. Signs were hung up beside every tap to remind people to turn off taps.
We held a Water Action day. On that day we encouraged all children to wear something blue or dress up as something relating to the water theme. All classes were involved in water based activities and learned about issues relating to water scarcity, the importance of clean water and sanitation and how we can conserve water in school and at home. In the afternoon the Green School committee held their sponsored ‘Walk for Water’ event in aid of Aidlink Water charity.
Each child carried backpacks containing 6 litres of water, as they walked for 6km around the school pitch – the average distance walked by women and children to access clean water in countries with issues of water scarcity.
We also hosted a ‘Think Before you Flush’ workshop where we learned about the environmental problems caused by flushing unsuitable items down the toilet. We also had a talk from the Inland Fisheries board and went on a field trip to our local river, the Bunowen, where we learned about the fish in our river and also carried out a litter pick on the river bank.
We are all really looking forward to beginning work on the 4th Green Flag for Travel.