Green Flag
Over the course of the next two years, we are hoping to receive our seventh Green Flag for Global Citizenship and Energy. A global citizen is someone who is aware and understands the wider world and their place in it. They are not just a citizen of their local community but also the world. They take an active role in their community and work with others to make our planet more peaceful, greener and sustainable.
All classes took part in a spring clean during February 2025. We decided to tackle the area inside the school, the carpark and also the area surrounding the entrance to the school. It was great to have so many children and staff on board to lend a hand. The hard work was clearly evident in the improvement achieved. Everyone must continue to do their best to keep our beautiful school litter free.
Beauty dies where litter lies.
February 2025
A huge thanks to all who contributed to our recent Green Flag fundraiser in the school. The Green School Committee organised a timber raffle and made a marvellous €362.20. This money will be put to great use over the coming weeks and months ahead buying much needed seeds, bulbs, gardening tools etc . PJ, our wonderful second class pupil was the winner of the raffle!
January 2025
Our new polytunnel has been a hive of activity over the last few weeks making preparations for sowing fruit and vegetables over the coming days. Huge thanks to all who worked so hard getting it ready. The children are really excited about planting their own glasraí agus torthaí and harvesting them before their finish up for the summer.
Our school was awarded the Green Flag for Global Citizenship and Litter and Waste in 2024. Our Green Code in the school for this theme was:
Waste not, want not is our Motto!
Saving our planet is better than winning the Lotto!
We are Global Citizens so keep our planet Green.
Remember: Reduce, Re-use, Recycle!
Scoil Naomh Cualán were awarded their Green Flag for Biodiversity in June 2022.
The pupils became experts in the area of Biodiversity and developed many initiatives in the school including a Bug Hotel, a Hedgehog Habitat, a Vegetable Garden, new Birdhouses etc. During the academic year 2022-2023, we will work towards our new flag- Litter and Waster, Global Citizenship.
Our first day of our WOW initiative took place on Wednesday, March 4th 2020. 58 children took part in the walk. We had two meeting places: the church and the park. Our aim is to reach 100 over the next few months.
Our Big Travel Challenge was a huge success. We say a major increase in the number of children walking to school over the ten day period. Our numbers rose from 20 children to 78 children. Well done to all the children, parents and teachers who took part in the initiative.
Fiona, from the Green Schools called to our school on Monday, 10th January 2020. She spoke to us about our Green Flag Travel theme. She got us to mark where we live on a map of Borrisoleigh using a coloured pin. The coloured pins show us the type of transport we use to get to school. The results were very interesting! We are going to look at depth at this map to see if there are any changes we can make to how to travel to school. If at all possible we hope that over the coming months more children will begin to walk/ cycle to school. Thanks to Fiona for all her help!
The Green-Schools Committee is inviting all in Scoil Naomh Cualán to take part in the Big TRAVEL CHALLENGE 2020. We hope this challenge will encourage more pupils to enjoy the benefits of actively travelling to school in the month of February.
The aim of the challenge is to promote a sustainable mode of transport for 10 days during the month of February. Our aim is to increase the numbers of pupils walking to school. To spread the message of The Big Travel Challenge the Green-Schools committee visited each class to talk about the challenge.
We are asking pupils to make an extra special effort from Monday 10th February to Monday 25th to walk to school for TEN DAYS.
Scoil Naomh Cualán currently has been awarded three Green Flags. Our most recent flag was awarded for water. Although our main focus was water, we had to maintain the work we had previously completed on the themes of litter and waste and energy. Therefore, we requested that all children take home their waste from their lunchbox everyday. Not only did this reduce our waste in school, it also ensured that parents were aware of what their children actually ate in school.
We thank our guest celebrity, Jimmy Finn, who raised our third green flag in association with our Green Flag Committee. We also thank all parents and children for their support in maintaining our care of the environment in the areas signified by our three green flags.
This year we have begun working on the theme of travel. The main aim of this flag is to increase the amount of children walking/ cycling/ scooting/ using the bus/ carpooling to school. We have already set up our Green School Committee consisting of ten very enthusiastic children who have wonderful travel plans for our school over the coming months!
Dara Dever, from Green Schools called to our school on Thursday, 6th of December 2018 and spoke to all classes about the Travel Flag.
Children in Scoil Naomh Cualan have made numerous changes to try and reduce their water consumption eg. a basin was put in each sink,’Turn it off’ campaign, use of hippo bags in toilets etc.
Our Water Display- all children in the school have made a pledge to try and do their best to save water in school and at home.
Children in Scoil Naomh Cualan have made numerous changes to try and reduce their water consumption eg. a basin was put in each sink,’Turn it off’ campaign, use of hippo bags in toilets etc.
Be Water Smart Art Competition
Sample entry from Shane in Fifth Class
Every year Scoil Naomh Cualán takes part in the National Spring Clean initiative run by An Taisce. While we always pride ourselves in striving to keep a clean, litter-free school, we make an extra special effort during National Spring Clean month. This year our Spring Clean took place on April 5th. The children were given a designated area in either the school grounds or the immediate environs. Each class headed off with their specially designed aprons to carry out their clean-up duties, and the school and surrounding areas were left spick and span afterwards!
On the 7th of April, children from third and fourth class and members of the Green School Committee from the senior school got the opportunity to visit the Water Treatment Plant in Coolbawn. It was an extremely interesting and worthwhile trip and the children returned to school with a great knowledge of how water is treated. A heartfelt thanks to Marian Carey for organising the trip and a huge thanks also to our Parents’ Council who funded the outing.
We are working very hard to get Green-Schools ‘Water’ flag this next year. We held our Action Day on Friday 3rd June 2016. All the school got involved in the action filled day. The Green School Committee organised the day to be ‘Blue Day’. All children were permitted to wear blue clothes for the day keeping in line with the water theme. An art competition was held within each class. Every child in the school created a ‘Blue Picture’. The Green School Committee selected winners from each class. All classes got the opportunity to play fun water games on the day as well as numerous science experiments based on the theme of water eg. jelly making, water filtration, slime making, gravity free water, bendy water to name but a few. We were also extremely thankful to Tom Young who came to both the junior and senior school on the day to talk to the children about his ability to divine for water. He gave us a really interesting account of his work.
Our older Green School Committee members have been very busy planting in our newly painted tyres. Well done to the boys and girls in fifth and sixth class.
Congratulations to all who helped Scoil Naomh Cualán to achieve second place in the Tidy Schools’ Competition for the Templemore-Thurles Municipal District 2016. We were delighted to repeat this success in 2017! Well done everybody and keep up the good work!
Jane and Shane from sixth class travelled to Hotel Kilkenny along with Mrs. Kenneally on Wednesday, 24th May 2107 to collect the third Green Flag for Scoil Naomh Cualán. We were awarded the flag for water conservation. Well done to all the children and staff in the school who made an excellent effort over the last few years to save water consumption.