Green Schools | St. Paul's Secondary School, Oughterard

Green Schools in St Paul’s

St. Paul’s is committed to continuously improving our energy performance within the environment and community that we learn, teach and work. The Green-Schools Programme gives pupils an opportunity to take ownership of an environmental issue and create a positive change in the local community.

A Green School’s committee was established in St Paul’s in 2019. The committee is made up of student council members from each year and some TY students. The 7-step approach is being followed to achieve the first flag which is litter and waste. The first step was to set up a committee followed by an environmental review.

This review involved designing a questionnaire on attitudes and practices in waste control in our school. It was delivered to the student population electronically. This reduced the use of paper which was one of the objectives of the committee. The third step was to create an action plan based on the findings of the review. In 2020, St. Paul’s was successfully awarded an Agenda 21 grant to supply segregated rubbish bins in the communal areas and to launch an environmental awareness campaign in the school.

All of this work has been achieved on the back of the TY group who in 2018 qualified to represent the school at the Eco UNESCO national finals in the Convention Centre, Dublin in May 2018 with their project titled A Waste Management Plan for our School.

Unfortunately, due to COVID 19 the implementation of the green school action plan was not possible in 2019/20 but with the beginning of the new academic year of 2020/21 we expect to have the plan delivered by Christmas, followed by monitoring and evaluation.

Please see www.greenschoolsireland.org for more info.

Update: Green School receives Agenda 21 Funding – December 2020

The Green School committee was successful in its application to Galway Co Council for Agenda 21 funding. This scheme is aimed at schools and community groups to help address many issues including environmental ones.

The grant of €850 was put towards the first green flag action plan for litter and waste reduction in the school. Bins for Paper Recycling and bins for Plastic Bottles were purchased.

An awareness campaign is planned for the new year with the help of the SPHE classes and poster competitions.

The green school committee are delighted with this grant allocation as it has helped in the implementation of their action plan on litter and waste management.

The photo below is of our TY students taking delivery of recycle bins as part of the green school’s action plan on litter and waste reduction in the school:

Update: St Paul’s successful in bid to get Green Flag for Litter and Waste

St Paul’s has successfully achieved the first green flag for Litter and Waste – Wahoo!!

Congratulations to the Green School committees for driving this project over the last 3 years.

In particular we wish to acknowledge the great contribution the following students made in the assessment process – Katie Long, Elissavet Delli and Michael Melia who performed so well at the Green flag interview held today by Microsoft Teams even though they were on holidays, this shows the great commitment of the students.

Plans are already made to continue further work on this flag and also to work on the next flag which is on energy use.

A big shoutout must go to Ms Healy and Mrs Forde for supporting this initiative and giving the students such an invaluable opportunity.