Green-Schools is Ireland’s leading environmental management and education programme for schools. Promoting long-term, whole-school action for the environment Green-Schools is a student-led programme with involvement from the wider community. The programme is operated and co-ordinated by the Environmental Education Unit of An Taisce (FEE member for Ireland).
Templederry National School has been successful in attaining 3 green flags and a lot of effort has taken place to achieve the standards required. A green flag for litter & waste was achieved in 2012. This was followed up with another green flag awarded for energy in 2014 and another for water in 2016. One of the key success factors of the Green-Schools programme is that it is a themed programme. That is, schools undertaking the programme work through the seven steps one theme at a time. The themes in sequence are:
Litter and Waste
Energy
Water
Travel
Biodiversity
Global Citizenship – Litter and Waste
Global Citizenship – Energy
Global Citizenship – Marine Environment
Therefore, for a school to be working on the travel theme they must have completed the seven steps for Litter & Waste and achieved their Green Flag. For a school to be working on Water they would have to have gone through the seven steps with Energy and renewed their Green Flag and so on.
The use of themes helps prevent schools from trying to deal with every aspect of their environment at once which could be overwhelming. Furthermore, it allows schools to build on their experience, expertise and best practice as they work from theme to theme.
Templederry N.S. is now aiming to achieve a green flag for travel. Some of the aims of the theme are
- To raise awareness around sustainable travel
- To encourage methods of travelling where possible e. bus, carpooling, cycling, walking, Park n’ Stride
- To see the benefit of walking/cycling (where safe) to our environment and health
Please Click here to find the results of our travelling to school survey
Our Green School Committee for our travel flag is as follows
Students: Ciara O’ Brien, Katie O’ Donoghue, Dylan O’ Farrell, Mihiret McCarthy, Ronan Ryan, Jonah McCarthy, Lily Marchand, Áron Kilgannon, Lucy Ryan, Dylan Ryan, Olivia Looby, Seán Ryan