Green School News

 Global citizenship – Shoebox Appeal

The Green School committee with the boxes collected for the Team Hope Christmas shoebox appeal. Our Green school theme this year is Global Citizenship Thanks to all who contributed to this great cause.

 

Global Citizenship

Multi-cultural/ Global Citizenship week was a great success. The children participated in African drumming workshops, food tasting, folk dancing  , watched  dance  and costume displays and listened to music from the many cultures that are  in our school. The theme of the week was “ All different, all equal” so the children learned about a variety of countries and cultures while fostering a respect for everyone in the world.

There was a fabulous response to the art competition which the parents and children completed at home. The Green School Committee picked out  the winners  and prizes were awarded after the national costume fashion show. The posters make a beautiful display in the hall and carry the message ‘ All different, all equal.

The following pictures show a flavour of our interesting week.

Green school news October 2016.

Having been awarded our fifth Green Flag for Biodiversity last June we have now started the two year programme towards our next flag. Our next theme  is Global Citizenship  with revision also on the Energy and waste issues.

Global Citizenship is about a moral  understanding of our rights and responsibilities in a global context.  We respect and value diversity while understanding that all people have equal rights. In addition it means that we value  the  earth as very precious and as a resource  upon which we all depend .

In school we had our first Green school meeting and welcomed six new pupils from the first classes .We also have a new teacher member Miss L.Gallagher.

During October the pupils on the committee run the bin competition between the classes. Every Friday the three bins in every class are marked out of ten. The committee  are very strict and deduct marks if bread is found in the compost bin or fruit in the recycling bin. It is good fun for the committee members especially when they get a chance to announce the winners over the intercom.

Our gardening committee  of Penny, Rose, Claire and Bertie  are busy tidying up our planters for use this year.

We had a kindness day during Friendship week which focused the childrens thoughts on the Gllobal need to be kind to one another. The children received Kindness certificates.

 

Multicultural  week is happening  November 14th -18th.  This week will be a celebration of the different cultures that contribute to life in St.Josephs.  We hope to expose the children to music, dance, food, costumes and stories  from other countries. There will be drumming workshops also.

Art displayed will be on the theme ‘All  different  all equal’.

Biodiversity Flag

We were delighted to welcome back our previous Principal Mrs Geraldine Byrne to raise our fifth Green flag for Biodiversity.  Her enthusiasm  and interest in the environment encouraged Mary Lambe to begin the Green school programme  ten years ago. Miss Dowling mentioned and praised the many projects in biodiversity that the students in the school were involved in during the past two years.Special praise and thanks were given to the new gardening committee and the childrens vegetable garden set up with help from Paddy Madden from the Heritage in schools scheme. The children went on many nature trips including seasonal walks in local Charleville forest,Lough Boora parklands.Clara bog and Mount Lucas wind farm. Before the flag raising the second class children sang songs related to minibeasts in keeping with the theme of Biodiversity.

The flag was collected at the award ceremony  in Athlone  by the committee and parents. Well done to all.

January  2015

St Joseph’s  Green School  Committee are delighted with all our awards to date. We now have four green flags,

        1. Litter and waste

        2. Energy conservation

        3. Water conservation

        4. Travel

For the next two years we will be working on the theme of BIODIVERSITY. This means developing an awareness and appreciation of the variety of plants and animals in our environment.  We are very lucky in St Joseph’s to have lovely  green areas around the school that help us learn about trees, plants and birds. Awareness of all previous themes will also be maintained.

In the autumn term we had an interestingbiodiversity walk in our local Charleville forest.  Every class enjoyed environmental workshops with Paddy Madden. We celebrated National tree day on October 10th. The annual bin competition between the classes brought awareness again on composting  and recycling. When planting bulbs in November teachers used water from the school water butt.

We hope to form a parent group with ideas for future biodiversity projects eg butterfly area, raised beds, planting vegetables etc.

Can you work with your child and help  us  compose a new rap/slogan /motto on a biodiversity theme.  You can write on a piece of paper and send it in to your child’s teacher. If you really want to be green, try emailing your rap to info@stjosephstullamore.ie  The raps for our previous themes are as follows—

St.  Joseph’s school is going green,                                    

We’re trying hard to be so clean,                                    

Recycling paper in the blue bin                                         

Caring for our world and no littering.                             

At St Josephs we’re proud to say                                       

that we save water every day.                                          

We’re using less on every chore                                       

So come on children let’s save some more.    

Shout, shout, let it all out

Saving energy is what it’s all about

Windows closed and doors too

Loving our earth is what we’ll do

Protect our planet and the ozone layer

Don’t drive here and don’t drive there

To save on petrol and diesel fuel

Take the first step and walk to school      

Green Schools news

The school was reviewed for its fourth Green flag for travel on February 12th by Mieke Scholte from An Taisce. She came to the school, spoke to the committee, visited a few classes and looked at all our Green activities. Hopefully we will receive good news in March. A big thank you to all the parents who participated in our W.O.W days and who now walk to school, carpool or park and stride. You might like to participate in the new national S.O.W (Scoot on Wednesday) on March 12th or the national W.O.W day on May 14th.

 


Biodiversity

This is was our first year working on the theme of Biodiversity. The school was active in the following projects during the school year.

Biodiversity workshops with Paddy Madden for the whole school in October. Paddy worked on a different theme with each class level and there are hibernaculums  and ladybug hotels  to be seen  still in the school grounds.

Each class standard learns about a tree and a bird in the local school environment so at the end of four years in St. Joseph’s  the children are knowledgeable about four trees and common birds.

Whole school biodiversity autumn walk in Charleville forest. Our spring walk to collect bluebells had to be cancelled due to the weather.

First and second classes surveyed twice to see what knowledge  they had on the theme of Biodiversity.

New Green School Committee  members elected.

A new Biodiversity rap was composed with the help from the parents in the school. The committee picked the winners.

The Special Class hatched butterflies from caterpillars and observed all the changes.

A school habitat map was drawn up.

A Biodiversity trail was set up in the school grounds  as part of our Active school week.

The whole school went on a Biodiversity tour to Lough Boora Parklands.

First and Second classes went on a Biodiversity trip to Clara bog and museum.

First and Second classes went on a trip to visit the wind farm in Mount Lucas.

Caitriona from Heritage Ireland  gave interesting bee workshops.

Below is a selection of photographs from the year showing all the work we have done.

Biodiversity 2015

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