Green Schools & Student Council

2023/2024

Our Global Citizenship Notice Board 2023/2024!

Meet the Green School Committee 2023/2024!

Some of the Fantastic work our Green School Committee are doing in the school garden. Well done Adrian for our new compost area.

Our Green School Notice Board 2023/2024 !

2023/2024

Many thanks to Ciaran Taggart, Director of Donegal Education Centre, for presenting prizes to winners of our Green School’s Slogan Competition. Pictured are the prize winners, Ciaran McTaggart and Susanne Gallagher (Green School Co- Ordinator).The winning slogan was won by 3rd class Student, with the slogan  ‘ If we make the school green, we’ll keep the earth green, Reduce your plastic and be fantastic ‘! 

Student Council 2022/23

 

2022/23 School Year

Student Council

Congratulations to the following students who have been elected onto the student council for the new school year:

Orla & Faolán (R6); Hannah & Michael (R5); Dáire & Ailbhe (R4) and Ryan & Eva (R3).

At Kilmacrennan NS, our student council values include being courteous, respectful and responsible. It is important that our students play an active role in the life of the school, and the work of our Student Council helps us achieve this. 

Our Student Council comprises 8 students from R3-R6. The main aim is to help to  improve the school life of everybody. Once a month, the students on the council will meet with the vice principal, Mr O’Donnell to discuss any issues coming up or tasks that need to be carried out. Students are elected onto the council by their peers annually by means of a class election.  

Role of student council member is to make suggestions and decisions on topics such as:

-school rules

-friendship

-health and safety

-our anti-bullying code

-lunchtime games and activities

-improvements to our yards

-care for our school and environment

-fundraising initiatives

2018-19 School Year

As part of our Green School Biodiversity Project,

a new Pond has been added to our School Garden

“The Bug Hotel”

‘Biodiversity matters to one and all, Towards a healthy future for big and small

As part of the Green School Biodiversity project, all classes will participate in building a ‘Bug Hotel’ in our School Garden, hoping to attract some creepy insects and species to our grounds!  Most visitors welcome!  Mrs Doherty’s First Class have got the project off the ground and we hope to add different layers over the coming weeks. Many thanks are due to Adrian and Master Gallagher for helping Mrs Doherty, Green School Co-ordinator with the project.

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Science Week in Kilmac

It’s been a busy week with Science Week in the school.  All pupils took part in some twenty science experiments in the School Hall, expertly overseen by organised by Fifth and Sixth classes.

National Tree Week

We were busy on National Tree Week; we planted a Silver Birch close to our School Garden. We checked on our Apple Trees which we planted last Spring. Most of the trees had a bountiful apple crop.

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From Farm to Fork

The ‘Tatie Hokers’ were out in full force in late September harvesting a bountiful potato crop.  We had a splendid return from our School Garden, gathering potatoes, onions and garlic on the day.  Anne, the School Secretary treated sixth class to a lovely stew the following day, using our homegrown crop.  Many thanks to Master Gallagher for co-ordinating the garden and to Anne for overseeing the cooking.

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2017-18 School Year

The Chick Hatching Project, organised by Ms Ferry’s Sixth Class, is generating great egg-citement in the school.  Three chicks have successfully hatched and are doing quite well.  The pupils have given informative presentations on the Life-Cycle of a Chick to all classes in the school.

Sixth Class have named the three arrivals,  Cheesepuff, Mc Nugget and Big Bird!                                            .

A most enjoyable morning was had too when the Kilmacrennan Young at Heart group visited the school to see the new arrivals.  Below see some photographs of their visit.

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From Farm to Fork

The ‘Tatie Hokers’ were out in full force on Monday, 12th September harvesting a bountiful potato crop.  We had a splendid return from our School Garden, gathering potatoes, onions and garlic on the day.  Anne, the School Secretary treated sixth class to a lovely stew the following day, using our homegrown crop.  Many thanks to Master Gallagher for co-ordinating the garden and to Anne for overseeing the cooking.

Green School Class of the Week

We are having a Green School Class of the Week award for whichever class has the best bins, encouraging recycling, compost and litter. Which ever class gets the most recycling stickers gets a certificate and we did a reward chart to keep track and at the end of every term the class with the most certificates will get a surprise!

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The first job of green school committee was to plant an oak tree on Tree Day.

Getting ready!

From little acorns great oaks grow!
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Planting the tree

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The G team.greenschool and senses walk 024

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Digging a hole greenschool and senses walk 033

Coming to the rescuegreenschool and senses walk 034 greenschool and senses walk 035 greenschool and senses walk 036

Hi ho Hi ho off to work we gogreenschool and senses walk 037 greenschool and senses walk 038

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Proud as punchgreenschool and senses walk 042

Learning about cycling  

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Having Fun creating our New School Garden

 Report from our Green School Committee

We decided to create a new School Garden in our grounds. We enlisted some outside help (fencing/ posts etc) but we undertook much of the hard graft ourselves. We had great fun spreading thew ground covering and filling our vegetable boxes with topsoil. We are to organise some garden furniture in this area too.

Master Devenney tells us that he has scarecrows on order!

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Even Master Devenney has got the hang of it!

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green school

FROM THE ARCHIVES

An Brat Glas

We have received Green Flags in Litter Awareness, Energy, Water and are currently working on Biodiversity.

We received our first Green Flag in May 2010.  We held our flag raising ceremony in September 2010.  The flag was raised by two of our retired teachers, Mrs Nancy Mc Gabhann and Mrs Anne Gallagher.  We were privileged to have them on the day as both of them promoted environmental awareness throughout their teaching careers, instilling a love of nature in countless students.

We attained our second flag in 2012.  The honour of raising the flag on this occasion fell to local man, Neal Doherty. He has been a champion of environmental causes over many years. Indeed, he led the schoolchildren on many nature walks over the years and has an intimate knowledge of the countryside.

The theme for the second flag was Energy.  We are continuously striving to conserve energy throughout the school.  We have energy aware posters displayed prominenlty in our hallway.  We turn off lights when we leave the room.  We turn down the radiator or turn off one radiator completely in the classroom if it gets too warm.  We close doors at all times to keep the heat in.  We also turn off all appliances when not in use e.g. computers, interactive white boards, visualisers etc.

We have come up with a new slogan to help us reduce the amount of Energy that we use.  “Be cool, don’t be a fool, Saving energy is our rule”.  It was created by Manus (Rang 4).

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Getting our Display energy certificate

While working on our Second Green Flag we decided to establish what our energy consumption was. We contacted Energy Consultant, Jim Duffy who provided mentoring advice, assessment and a few energy saving tips.

Jim worked with a group of sixteen children from fourth, fifth and sixth classes (included in this group were all the senior Green School Committee members) using a hands on approach. The pupils were organised into teams of architects, engineers, scientists and computer experts.

The Architects had to measure the building and record the floor area. They used rulers, a trundle-wheel, scaled/grid-lined paper, pencils and rubbers.

The engineers had to survey the building and record the building services-lighting and heating equipment. They used pencils, rulers, DEC input form from www.energyeducation.ie along with their own observational skills!

The scientists had to review the energy bills and convert oil litres to kWh. Sum all kWh fuel. They used energy bills (taken over a year), conversion tables, calculaters, pencils and paper.

The computer experts had to enter all the data into the on-line form at www.energyeducation.ie and publish the DEC. They used all the data gathered, a computer, on-line connection and a printer.

We,  in the school, found that the hands-on approach used by Jim created a great awareness in the children and everybody involved really enjoyed the workshop tasks.

Kilmacrennan N.S. now has our first DEC with an A2 rating! Our goal now is to maintain this high standard every year when the DEC is renewed.

  Display energy certificate

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Engineers getting to grips with workings of a boiler house a

and

Architects busy measuring area of building 

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Our Green School Day of Action

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 Some tips on how to save Energy in the home!

click here

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Green School

The Green School Committee is made up of two children from each class from Third to Sixth, two teaching staff and one member of our non-teaching staff. The committee meets regulary. The progress of the Committee is discussed and issues needing attention are highlighted. Opinions and ideas are taken from all Committee members on the effectiveness and progreess of our Action Plan.

The Green School Committee is currently working towards our Third Green Flag on the water theme. We are striving to conserve water in the school, at home and in the wider community. We are encouraging the children to be “water wise” and to understand how valuable this natural resource is.

Our school, being a new build, took a number of steps at planning stage which helps to keep our water usage in check! We have taps in our toilet areas which shut off automatically after 20 seconds, we half half & full flush controls on our toilets, to name a few of the measures.

While we are actively working to promote water awareness, we must also remain vigilant about waste management, recycling and energy conservation in our school.

The Green School Committee is also very involved in improving the appearance of our school through our focus on gardening. We have begun work on a vegetable garden with four different varieties of potato already planted. Mr Gallagher also has an extensive range of vegetables planted indoors in his classroom awaiting the arrival of milder weather coniditions.

We have shrubs planted in pots in our school grounds and Mrs Doherty, with the help of the Committee, has planted a range of herbs, strawberries and tomatoes in our greenhouse within the building.

The Green School Committee keep the general school body up to date on our activities via assembly and through the Student Council.

Our Green School Committe

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This year as a Green Committee we have decided to look at ways to conserve water. Here are some of our ideas that you can try at home:

1. Take a shower instead of a bath.

2. Keep filling the same bottle of water instead of bringing a new one in each day.

3. Turn the tap off when brushing your teeth.

4. Always turn off the tap when you’re finished using it.

5. Do full loads and not half washes in your washing machine.

6. Only boil as much water as you need for the kettle.

7. Collect rain water for watering the garden instead of using a hose.

8. When washing your car use a bucket not a hose.

9. Place a small plastic bottle full of water in your toilet cistern to reduce the amoutn being flushed away each time.

10. Try washing things by hand.

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 School Green Code

Stop the Drip

Always check

Value Water

Everyone!

Off goes the tap

until it’s needed

Reduce water usage

Whenever you can

Action is needed

To stop water wastage

Everyone can do it

Right from now!

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Some pictures from Our Water Theme Day!

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Our In School “Value Water” Art Competition

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And Our Regional Final Winner 

Josh Lynch, Kilmacrennan, Donegal

  • School Holidays

    • Easter Holidays
      There will be no school from Monday 25th March for two weeks.

      Re-opening on Monday 8th April.
    • May Bank Holiday
      We are closed on Monday 6th and Tuesday 7th May.
    • Enrolment News
       

      We will accept applications for the 2024/25 school year from 8 January until 29 January 2024..

       

      Use the first link for Applications to our Mainstream Junior Infant class & for applications to other Mainstream Classes

      New Enrolments

      Enrolment Application Form  school year

      Please attach a copy of the child's Birth Certificate with the application.

      Please contact the School Office for Information regarding Applications for our ASD Class.

      Forms for Special Class Applications are listed below.

      NCSE-Application-Form-1-Application-for-access-to-SNA-support (9)

      SEN-School-Transport-Application-Form (22)