On Thursday June 23rd 2016 we held our Green Flag Raising Ceremony. All our school community was present and special guests who had been invited by the Junior Green School Committee. Michael Maye raised the Green Flag on behalf of Swinford Tidy Towns. This is our 6th Green Flag and we are all very proud of ourselves. To date we have been presented with flags for the following themes:
- Litter and Waste
- Energy Conservation
- Water Conservation
- Green Travel
- Biodiversity
and now this 6th flag is for the theme – Global Citizenship with emphasis on Litter and Waste. Junior members of our Green School Committee explained different activities and projects that we undertook towards realising success with this theme.
We form a committee for each theme and that committee stays in place for almost two years until we achieve the Flag for that theme. They have many tasks to tackle – voting on Green Codes, litter blitzes, participating in Tidy Town Clean ups, bin checks, action days, meetings, relaying information from meetings to classes and class teachers, deciding upon action plans and targets to be achieved, conducting initial surveys, resurveying the pupils. This is just a taste of Green school committee roles. There are many, many more.
The committee plays a vital role but if we didn’t have the commitment, support and consistent engagement of each and every staff member and every pupil to the Green School Initiative then our efforts would be futile. Everyone in our school community plays a very significant part. It might be just washing out a yogurt carton and putting it in the right bin or picking a piece of litter from the school yard or lawn – but each of these little tasks make a huge difference and help us keep our coveted Green school status – a status we are very proud of and one we hope we can continue to uphold well into the foreseeable future.
All photographs provided by Yvonne Irwin and Michael Maye – Thank you Yvonne and Michael.
