Green Schools St Mary’s- Working Together for a Sustainable Future

St Mary’s Primary has been participating in the Green-Schools Programme since 2003. Promoting long-term, whole-school action for the environment. Green-Schools is a student led programme with involvement from the wider community.

We have achieved all 10 Green-Schools Flags including: Litter and Waste Flag, Energy Flag, Water Flag, Travel Flag, Biodiversity Flag, Global Citizenship Litter & Waste Flag, Global Citizenship Energy Flag, Global Citizenship Marine Environment Flag, Global Citizenship Travel Flag and Global Citizenship Food and Biodiversity Flag.

Our Green Team lead this initiative. Two children from each class from 1st to 6th are democratically elected by their classmates and retain their positions on the Green Team for the duration of the school year.

Each flag takes two years of raising awareness and organising school activities to explore the theme to deepen knowledge.

In June 2024, we achieved our 10th Green Flag for our work on the theme Global Citizenship Food and Biodiversity.

Our New Theme for 2025/2026

‘Primary Climate Ambassadors’ is an exciting new programme that has been designed by the Green Schools’ Climate Action Team for schools who have completed all 10 flags. We have ten exciting climate challenges to work through! They are themed around waste, energy, water, transport and biodiversity. The programme is grounded in critical thinking and inquiry-based learning, providing an immersive experience for participants.

Our New Theme – 2024/2025

We are on Year 1 of ‘Primary Climate Ambassadors’

At present our two fourth classes are working on two exciting projects. The two classes will work on one project each. Ms Comerford’s class will learn about ‘Seeds of Change: Pollination & Growing Our Food’. This will tie in with their ongoing use of the school polytunnel.

Ms. Spaight’s class will work on ‘Zero Waste Lunch’. This involves students doing a waste audit for a week to see what is wasted, packaging, biggest sources of waste and possible solutions etc.

We don’t forget all of our other Green Schools themes. We had Hans Van De Ven from An Taisce and the SEAI come in to give workshops based around sustainability. We also have two representatives from GOAL to come visit the classes in relation to the Global Goals visiting the school in March to chat to classes about the Global Goals.

We will have lots of exciting things to report over the coming months.

Watch this space!!!