About Green Schools

In Scoil Chaitríona Senior we care a lot about our environment. We want to keep our world healthy and to make our school grounds a safe and welcome place for wildlife of all sorts. Over the years we’ve had many active Green Schools committees (made up mostly of students but teachers, management, ancillary staff and parents were also represented) and have earned six green flags. We continue to look after our school environment and to learn about how we can look after our world.

We’ve achieved six Green Flag awards and have covered the following themes:  Litter and Waste, Energy, Water and Transport. We’re constantly working to promote Biodiversity in our school grounds. 

Click here to find out what we’ve been up to since 1999! 

We are busy here all year ’round! Here’s what a green year in Scoil Chaitríona Senior looks like;

September:

  • Our school garden, up and running since 2010, gets our attention after the summer holidays. We harvest any vegetables which we planted and we weed and tidy up the raised beds.
  • We often dig in rotted leaves (which we collect in Autumn) or classes gather seaweed from our local beach, which we spread on the beds.
  • We plant winter veg and herbs in some beds and we cover some beds for the Winter.

October:

  • We celebrate National Tree annually in October. Classes take part in tree activities in the school grounds, and in Merlin Woods.
  • Classes enter the Galway City Council’s Anti-Litter Poster competition.

November:

  • We often invite environmental specialists to visit our school. Classes participate in workshops and have hands on experiences in areas as diverse as bee keeping, bird watching, drama and music with environmental themes, gardening, recycling and waste management and global warming.
  • Classes make and hang bird feeders for the Winter months as there is  lots of bird activity around our grounds.

December:

  • Scoil Chaitríona Senior regularly has winners in the Galway City Council’s anti-litter calendar competition! Their posters are published in the new year’s calendar and all students receive a copy. Well done to all our talented artists!

February:

  • Since it was introduced in 2018, students and teachers take up the challenge annually to try to live plastic free for a week. Our main goal is to try to do without single use plastics. Lots of interesting debate and insightful feedback always forms part of this challenging week.

March:

  • We celebrate National Tree Week annually in March. Classes carry out tree studies and get involved in tree activities around our school grounds, or on visits to local woodlands.

April and May:

April and May are very busy months!

  • Since we set out on our Green School’s journey in 1998, Scoil Chatiríona Senior has participated annually in An Taisce’s National Spring Clean. Classes clean up Renmore Pitches and Renmore Avenue. We’ve kept a record over the years and from a high of 29 bags of rubbish collected in 2000, on average we fill 7 bags yearly now. So it looks like our message is spreading and people are dropping less litter! It was a great initiative and the parish looks great thanks to all the wonderful Scoil Chaitríona Senior pupils.
  • Way back in 2009 our wonderful caretaker, and bird enthusiast, Mike, installed a nest box, with a camera, in one of the trees in our grounds. We were thrilled when in 2012 a pair of blue tits ‘moved in’ to our nest box. With the camera in the nest box, we were privileged to be able to watch them building their nest, and to get an insight into their secret world as they incubated the eggs, as the eggs hatched, as the parents cared for and fed the chicks, as the chicks grew and developed and finally fledged. We’ve had blue tit residents in our nest boxes every year since 2012 and we never tire of watching their progress. Thanks to Mike for making it possible for us.
  • The students get busy weeding and planting in the school vegetable garden and enjoy regular visits from our garden expert, Kay, who also facilitates Biodiversity workshops in classrooms.

June:

  • More planting in the garden and visits from Kay. We look forward to a rich harvest in September.

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