Green Schools & Student Council
2024/2025
Meet the Student Council 2024/2025
2023/2024
Ann O’Donnell raises Green School Flag in Kilmacrennan N.S.
On Monday morning June 10th Ann O’Donnell, retired secretary, returned to Kilmacrennan National School (where she had worked for 24 years) to proudly raise the school’s 6th Green Schools Flag- Global Citizenship Litter & Waste.
It’s a theme that the whole school had been focused on for the previous two years and a special word of thanks to the children on the Green Schools Committee who embraced the theme and encouraged and supported their classmates, the staff, their families and the wider community to do so also. The committee were Sophie, Abi-Leigh, Maria, Emma, Sadhbh, Aoibheann, Nathan, Charlie, Ailbhe, Stephen, Patrick and Ben .
Thanks also to the other committee members – Green Schools Coordinators Susanne Gallagher & JP Gallagher, Adrian Gaffey & Grace Mc Ginty.
Maith sibh uilig!
Kilmacrennan N.S. have been awarded the 6th Green School Flag, Global Citizenship Liter & Waste this year. We had our Action Day – International Cultural Day on Fri last 3rd May. What a fabulous day it was … it was a festival! We had displays in the gym from all classes, which included flags, maps, facts regarding litter & waste, currencies, drawings, national dress, games and my goodness – the food! The tastes and textures from around the world were amazing – we were all stuffed ( 245 children and 30 staff)! Never having held an event like this before, it was wonderful to see how everyone embraced the day – it was truly joyful. It’s now going to be an annual event in our school. We had songs and dance and jokes … we learned so much about each other.
Hope you get a ‘flavour’ of what our day entailed.
Kind regards,
Green School Committee
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 ‘!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
The first job of green school committee was to plant an oak tree on Tree Day.
Getting ready!
From little acorns great oaks grow!
Planting the tree
The G team.
Digging a hole 
Coming to the rescue
Hi ho Hi ho off to work we go
Proud as punch
Learning about cycling
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!
Even Master Devenney has got the hang of it!
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).
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
Engineers getting to grips with workings of a boiler house a
and
Architects busy measuring area of building
Our Green School Day of Action
Some tips on how to save Energy in the home!
click here
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
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.
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!
Some pictures from Our Water Theme Day!
Our In School “Value Water” Art Competition
And Our Regional Final Winner
