Here in Rathnure National School, we are now working towards our third Green Flag, the Water Flag. We will focus on reducing our water consumption for the next two years, and of course not forgetting to recycle and remain concious of our energy usage.
In June 2013, we raised our second Green Flag, the Energy Flag. We are very concious of saving energy in our school and actively work towards reducing our energy consumption every day. Each class is in charge of their own classroom, by ensuring that when the room is empty lights are switched off, computers are not running and that the Interactive Whiteboards and the visualisers are powered off. To conserve heat we always keep the doors closed and keep the thermostats at 18 degrees.
Our Green Code
Sprinklers, baths, dripping taps too
All waste water, so what should we do?
Turn off the taps, take showers too
Use the green button when flushing the loo.
These are the ways we save the life giving stuff
So save it, share it, there will be enough.
In 2013 an Energy Cabin visited our school. The Energy Cabin was developed under the County Wexford Renewable Energy Strategic Committee. It was designed and built by a diary farmer in Adamstown, County Wexford. The energy cabin has a wind turbine, solar panel and water tank, photovoltaic solar panel, 2 12v batteries, invertor and 240v extension cable, energy meters, solar oven and hydrogen kit car.
We had the cabin in our school for a week and the children got a chance to explore it in full. They learned lots of things about renewable energy technologies. It helped raise the awareness of the potential that renewable energy technologies offer us.The pupils gained a greater understanding of how renewable energy technoligies work and this will stimulate an interest in renewable energy technologies
We have our own composting bin in school where we put our compostable waste. We can put pencil shavings, fruit cores and teabags in the compost bin to make lovely compost for our flower beds.
We keep our school environment clean and healthy by planting plants and bulbs.
We have slogan competitions and art competitions in school to promote and highlight the great work we do in order to be a Green School.
We all work hard to earn our Green Flags, but without our fantastic Green Committee this would not be possible. The Green Committee has pupil representetives from each of the senior classes and they are the driving force behind our great achievements. They attend meetings, organise activities, and encourage us to recycle every week.
Here in Rathnure National School, we are committed to recycling. We bring our old newspapers from home to school and put them in the newspaper recycling bank beside our school. We are one of the top schools in Wexford to recycle newspapers and have recieved many rewards as a result of this. We also recycle old computer games, mobile phones, stamps and batteries in our school. We send our old phones and computer games to the Jack & Jill foundation where they raise money to help very sick little babies.
We are very proud of our beutiful school grounds and we enjoy keeping it clean and free from rubbish.