Walk to School Week
From the 11th to the 15th of March we will be having a Walk to School Week. We will be encouraging as many children and parents as possible to make the journey to school on foot. For those who live outside the Glen we are encouraging you to ‘Park and Stride’. This means parking safely some distance from the school and walking the last part of the journey.
The walking will be monitored and there will be treats for the girls who make the effort to walk. Walking is good for one’s physical and mental health and is good for the environment too.
As our Slogan says;
“So come on now and walk, walk walk.
Green Schools Slogan
We are St Brendan’s Green Schools Girls,
We want to help you move.
Cycle, scoot, skate, jog, walk.
Ditch the car and take a walk.
Breathe clean air, it’s good for your health.
Leave the car, it’s good for your wealth.
St Brendan’s girls just love the world,
So come on now and walk, walk, walk.
NO IDLING campaign
As part of our Travel theme we are taking part in the ‘No Idling’ campaign. The aim of the campaign is to encourage car drivers to turn off their ignitions when the car is stopped.
There are a number of very good reasons to do this;
- Exhausts emit CO2 which is the main gas causing global warming so the less that we produce, the better.
- Exhaust fumes are unhealthy to breathe in especially for children whose lungs are still developing.
- Having the engine running when it’s not necessary is consuming fuel and so is burning your money – not a good idea!
- If your car is parked in the school car park with the ignition running it can be hard to children to hear what is happening with cars around them and this can be dangerous.
The Travel Flag is the focus of our Green Schools work in 2017 to 2019. This involves continuing work on the previous themes of Litter and waste, Energy and Water as well as working on Travel. The aim is to increase the number of children who walk to school each day. There are lots of health as well as environmental benefits to walking. The children are making a particular effort on Wednesdays to walk to school with our WOW days. These will run until the end of November and begin again in the Spring.
(2016) Our work continues towards getting a third green flag in the school. The girls have been busy reading the water meter, telling all the other children what we do at the committee meetings and in general working towards reducing the amount of water we use in the school.
Our target is to reduce the amount of water we use by 10%. Between October and December 2015 we managed to reduce it by 8.5% so we are well on track to reach our target. Currently we use 8 litres of water, per person, each day.
In St Brendan’s we are proudly flying two green flags. The first Green Flag was presented to St Brendan’s School in March 2011. This was the result of a lot of hard work by the Green Schools Committee to reduce Litter and Waste in our school. The flag was raised by Sr Goretti who was Principal of the school for many years.
There is a collection point for old phones, ink cartridges and batteries with the phones going to the Jack and Jill Foundation. Plastic, paper and cardboard are recycled and the amount of waste produced by the school has been reduced considerably.
In 2013 we were awarded our second flag. The theme for this flag was Energy and we all worked towards reducing our use of electricity and trying to waste less heat by keeping doors closed. We succeeded in reducing the amount of gas we use for heating while still keeping the school warm. This has been done mainly by turning down the thermostat a little and keeping doors closed. The girls are very vigilant about turning off the lights when not needed and making sure that equipment isn’t left on standby.
Ellen Murphy from An Taisce was our guest to raise our second flag. Ellen had been very supportive of our work over the years both for the Green Flags and the SMILES project. Ellen explained the meaning of the symbols on the flag to the girls and parents who joined us for our flag raising ceremony.
We are now working towards gaining our third green flag which is for water. There is a very enthusiastic and energetic committee who are working hard towards our goal of reducing the amount of water used and continuing on with the work already being done.
Green Schools Committee girls
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