Green Schools Flag Ceremony in Kilteevan National School

On Friday afternoon last, pupils, staff and families of our 6th Class pupils gathered at the front of our school to celebrate the raising of our school's 6th Green Schools flag.

The 6th Class pupils treated us to a lovely speech, explaining that a Green Schools flag is an internationally recognised flag, awarded to schools who have displayed a long-term commitment to caring for the environment. 

This flag has been awarded to us for our work on the theme Global Citizenship Litter and Waste over the past two years, under the guidance of Ms. O'Connor.

As part of our work, we learned about global Citizenship - people all over the world share the same earth. We are all connected by the foods that we eat, the clothes that we wear and how we dispose of our waste. We can support farmers and producers in developing countries by choosing to buy Fairtrade tea, coffee, sugar, chocolate and cotton.

In recent years, we have reduced our general waste, increased our recycling, installed an orange Re-Turn bin for plastic bottles at our school and  reused bottle tops to make murals. We took part in the National Spring Clean litter pick, made Christmas decorations using recycled materials, had a willow-weaving Day of Action, grew our own fruit and vegetables, cared for our own hens and much more. 

We learned about two more important "R" words, "REFUSE" and "REPAIR". REFUSE means refuse to buy items you don't need or refuse to buy items wrapped in plastic, while REPAIR means get an item fixed instead of throwing it in the bin e.g. get leather shoes or boots repaired by a cobbler, get the screen on a smartphone replaced instead of buying a new phone.

Our 6th Green Schools flag was raised by our very special guests Eileen and Michael Fahey, whose work in Kilteevan Tidy Towns continues to inspire us.

It is great to see our new Green Schools flag flying proudly outside the school. Thank you to all the staff who helped with our Green Schools work in recent years; Ms O'Connor, Mrs Brennan, Ms Whyte, Mrs Coyle, Ms Tarmey, Ms Slyman, Lena, Vicky and Rachel. 

Thank you to Breda Cahill Durr for the beautiful photographs. 

Well done boys and girls!