Carrick-on-Suir school wins National Global Citizenship School of the Year award

Cutting energy costs and radically reducing single use plastic bottle waste has earned Carrick-on-Suir's Presentation Primary School the National Global Citizenship School of the Year award. 

The Green Schools Programme national award along with a regional Global Citizenship award were presented to  Presentation teachers Marie Hickey and Emma Power and fourth class pupils Millie Ryan and Adila Muhammad at a ceremony in The Helix in Dublin on May 21.  

They were also presented with the school's seventh Green Flag and €500 prize money, which will be invested in developing the school garden.  

The awards and flag were showcased at an assembly of the Presentation's students and staff in the school hall the following day. The assembly was  attended by retired principal Sr Veronica Casey and retired teacher Margaret Doyle, who instigated the Green Schools Programme in the school.

 The new Green Flag and trophies were paraded into the hall by students on the school's Green Flag Commitee. 

 The celebration was the culmination of two years of hard work by the school's students and staff on reducing energy consumption and plastic waste. 

Ms Hickey, who is the school's Green Flag Commitee co-ordinator,  said the national award was major recognition  of the work they had done to promote a greener environment and they were now a school others will look up to in this area. 

"We spent the past two years working towards our seventh Green Flag," she explained. 

" We cut down energy use by installing sensor lights in the bathrooms and classrooms and reminded people to turn off lights when they left a  room and turned down the white boards at lunchtime. We insulated a huge area of our ceiling, which also cut our energy consumption."

 The Green Flag project also focused on reducing single use plastic waste produced in the school. Water bottles were the biggest problem. 

The school achieved this by installing drinking water taps in each classroom and issuing re-usable plastic water bottles to students.

The impact was dramatic.  The number of single-use waste plastic bottles produced in the school fell by 1500 a week and 6000 a month.

 Ms Hickey said they also encouraged students to walk to school where it was feasible to cut fuel consumption and students completed projects about climate change. 

Sixth class students, for example, created 3D models highlighting global warming while other projects examined renewable and non-renewable forms of energy. 

  "We sent a survey to parents to enquire about their energy use at home as well to encourage people to be aware of saving energy.

“And all the children took a Climate Change pledge to do their best to save energy and cut down on waste. 

 “We did so many things over the two years to try and promote the Green Flag project. We have a slogan in our school. 'We only have one earth to share, so let's work together to show we care',” she added.  

It aptly sums up the Presentation Primary School's  crusade to improve our environment.

Green Flag will be raised at school in September 

The  seventh An Taisce Green Flag awarded to Carrick-on-Suir's Presentation Primary School will be formally raised at the school  in September. 

The ceremony planned for September 22 will be another big day of celebration in the school, according to the school's Green Flag Committee co-ordinator Marie Hickey. 

The flag raising ceremony will mark the end of the Greens Schools project on Global Citizenship and Energy the school has spent the past two years working on and the start of another two year campaign to achieve an eight Green Flag. 

  Ms Hickey said the next Green Flag project will be aboutlooking after our  water and   water pollution.