Saint Mary's NS

When we came back to school in September we got working straight away. Our new third class learned how to do the litter picks after breaks, record in the litter log and change our traffic lights. Fourth class learned how to do the bin monitoring on the yards and sixth class began doing the weekly litter checks on Monday mornings. We also ran Reuser Ratings surveys in all classes to see which class was bringing the most reusable containers into school. Well done fifth class for setting us all such good example! Our Green School's committee also visited all the classes to remind our students about how we are working to maintain our low levels of litter and to suggest Green School friendly snacks for break time.

For National Tree Day ( Thursday 7th October) we worked very hard to plant our school's name in buxus hedging at our school gate. Work began at 8 o'clock ar maidin and continued until 4.30pm. Every child from Junior Infants up to Fouth class got to help with the planting in some way and then some volunteers from fifth and sixth class stayed after school to get the work finished. We have to thank Ms. Boyle, Maureen, Christy and Ms. Kinsella for all their hard work. It was a great success and we are very proud of our achievements. Fifth and sixth class worked hard to keep them well watered until the mid term.

In January all the classes worked on doing projects about Litter and Waste. Junior Infants read the Eden project book "George Saves the World by Lunchtime." and drew pictures to show how they would save the world by lunchtime! Senior Infants made Litter Bugs out of rubbish and musical instruments from used materials and put on a concert. First class read "Ellen and Eoin's Great Litter Adventure" and designed posters and wrote acrostic poems. Second class did the "What a Waste" lesson from the epa website and wrote acrostic poems based on the last line of our Green Code. Third class did the "Rot or Not" experiment from the epa website and Fourth class did the lesson called "Food for Thought." Fifth class did an amazing project on litter, designing posters, writing songs and jingles and doing a debate. Sixth class spent a day making recycled paper onto which they put litter poems.
Well done everybody!
As well as doing great work in class our students have also kept our yard extra clean over the last month.

In February we all began to put together our application for the green flag! We are delighted to report that it was handed in to an Taisce on Monday 21st February. We will keep you updated on our progress. We have also just sent home a survey to all our families about how we manage our waste at home. We will be posting the results on our green schools notice board as soon as possible. This month we are hoping to brighten up our school on our green day - 16th March.

On the 24th May 2011 three members of our Green School's Committee went to Croke Park with Ms. Keenan for the flag awarding ceremony. It was a great day out! We brought the flag back to show all the classes.