Green School Campaign to date: This year is our second year of the Green Schools travel programme. We are working towards our 4th green flag. The main aim of the programme is to get children and parents AND teachers out of the cars and walking or cycling to school.
We have done loads of work let us fill you in on what has been happening so far!!!
Initially we carried out a survey to see how children travelled to school. We were shocked to see how many people drove.
We also did an on the spot traffic survey.
It was shocking to see such a huge amount of cars especially on Gilroy Ave.
There were many dangers for children crossing the road and also for the drivers.
We carried out a walkability audit and picked the safest routes to school. These routes were sent home to our parents along with maps outlining park n stride areas and drop zones.
They turned out to be very useful for children walking or cycling to school and hopefully they will be used this year as well.
Every class revised the rules of the road and we had a visit from the Garda Traffic Corps.
They talked to us about road safety and showed us the cars and equipment they use. Everyone really enjoyed the day.
We held our green schools travel code competition and the standard was very high. The teachers had a difficult time picking a winning code, so, there were THREE winners! The winning entries were put together to form our very own travel code!!!
Our Green Schools TRAVEL Code
Darren Quinn
Ben Carolan
Darragh Lawlor
You’ve got to make an effort
To keep our climate cool
And make the right decisions
As you go to school.
Cycling, carpool,
Park and stride;
These are all
Great ways to ride!
If it’s a long way to the school
Take a bus or carpool,
Or ride your bike and ditch the car!
But walking is better by far,
We decided that every Wednesday would be the day where people made the effort to walk to school; we called these our W.O.W. days “Walk On Wednesday”.
Last year we launched our W.O.W days by marching from Town Hall to the school chanting our Green School chant: One step, two steps,
Use your feet,
Three steps, four steps,
Walk the street.
Off to work,
Or to the shop,
Don’t take the car,
Run, jump or hop!
We also had plenty of parents join us on our march and we were led by the Fire Brigade. Mieke who is from Holland and works for An Taisce in Ireland is helping us to get our fourth green flag and she was really impressed with our march. It was a great day for all involved!!
Our three WOW mascots,
Walky the Allstar
Teri the Traffic Light
High Vis Victor
By: Arman Duzel
By: Denis Lawless
By: Conor McCarthy
Certificates were given out at the end of the school year for the boys who made a huge effort to walk or cycle to school. There were Gold, Silver and Bronze certificates galore given out!!!!!!
Our W.O.W days will commence for the coming school year on Wednesday the 15th September. We are also hoping that our parents and the boys participate with us in European Mobility Week, which runs from Thursday 16th –Wednesday 22nd September,
This means that we treat each of those days as our W.O.W days making the effort to walk or cycle to school.
This year we will be also be promoting cycling to school- we will be keeping you updated about the work going on in the school.
On Wednesday 29th Sept, to Friday 1st Oct Mieke from An Taisce visited our school to give free cycle safety lessons to all pupils and parents who wished to take part.
It was a great success, all the pupils and parents enjoyed the day very much and it is encouraging to see an increase in the number of pupils who are cycling to school already.
Mieke taught us the proper way to cycle our bikes on the road, and all the ways to keep safe when cycling.
One of the main reasons Mieke gave the parents lessons was to encourage them to allow their children cycle to school by showing them safe cycling routes.
We would like to thank all the pupils and parents for taking part.
