Our aim here in Kiltallagh School is to develop the pupils and staff awareness of their environment. The majority of young people care very much about their environment and endeavour to make positive changes to protect it. Our Green School Programme is a central part of Kiltallagh School life.
In June 2009, we raised our first green flag for Recycling in Kiltallagh School.
We visited KWD Recycling Centre in Killarney as part of our project. We introduced recycling, rubbish and compost bins in all the classrooms with various pupils assigned to empty the bins into the larger bins outside each evening. We also put in place a recycling bin for batteries and collected old mobile phones. We had regular clothing recycling days where all families brought in any old clothes, shoes, linen, curtains etc. These were collected by a recycling company. In the first two years we reduced our waste going to landfill by 40 %.
We are very proud of this achievement and have worked very hard to maintain our flag down through the intervening years and to improve on our recycling.
In 2010, we were delighted to win the Super Valu National Tidy Towns Award.
We then challenged ourselves and began working on our 2nd Flag for Energy. Our main focus was educating ourselves and the wider community about energy saving. We looked at various ways in which we could be more energy efficient in school and at home, such as keeping outside doors closed to keep the heat in, not leaving electrical appliances on standby, turning off lights when not needed. We established Energy Wardens who were responsible for turning off lights, computers etc. in the evenings as well as ensuring that all blinds were closed to conserve energy. We invited a plumber, an electrician, a Bio Energy Consultant and Michael O Coiléan from An Taisce in to talk to us about energy, how it is used and how we can conserve it. We visited the Wind Farm in Tursillagh where we learned so much about this renewable energy source. We established a competition for the pupils to compile an Energy Code.
This was one of our winning entries in our Energy Code Competition.
E-nergy Saving
N-ot Wasting
E-lectricity
R-eusable Energy- Wind
G-oing to Save Energy
Y-ah We’re Saving Energy
We received our second green flag for Energy in 2011.
Our third Flag was for water in 2013.
We first established our water usage in the school and then compiled a list of strategies to try and reduce this. We installed compression taps in all our sinks which ensured that taps were not left running and we also reduced the pressure of the water. Staff became much more conservative when putting on the kettle! A water butt was placed outside the school which was used to water plants etc. We learned about water saving in class and highlighted people’s use of water in the home encouraging them to reuse water for gardening and to take showers instead of baths. We visited the Water Treatment Plant in Killorglin as part of our research for our Green Flag.
In May 2015 we were awarded our 4th Green Flag for Sustainable Travel.
Under the guidance of Michael O Coiléan and Fiona Barry from An Taisce, all our pupils are encouraged to walk or cycle to school. We have established a WOF Day (Walk On Friday) each child is provided with a High Viz Vest to make them more visible to all road users thus hopefully keeping everybody safe.
In September 2015 we commenced working on our 5th green flag for “Biodiversity”. We were delighted to be awarded this in the summer of 2017.