Our Senior Room pupils travelled to Celtic Park in Boyle recently to take part in the Primary Schools 5 a side soccer competition. Both our boys team and girls team performed tremendously on the day and despite playing some wonderful football and winning some of their games, they were unfortunate not to proceed to the next round. However, a great day was had by all.
Here in Ballagh N.S. we are very sustainable. Firstly, we have a very active Green School Committee who are busy working on the theme Global Citizenship – Energy. Recently we installed a new smart meter, we now know our precise energy usage to the decimal so no more false accurate bills! Over the past two years we have been working on “Energy” projects such as Solar Energy, Ocean Energy and Wind Energy so we the students and our households are now more aware of the necessity for our country and world to produce clean reusable energy.
From a student perspective, I feel that the more projects we do the more we will understand it. Recently, we have been working on a project theme “Sustainable Cities” where we are divided into four groups and we were equally divided from the Sixth Class all the way into the Junior Infants. We feel that these building projects and constructions are a fun and creative way to teach, inform and involve everyone about how to make sustainable cities because they are the way forward of living for us and the next generation.
We also have a water meter where it tells you the amount of water we consume. Every Tuesday Ms Nolan and the Third and Fourth class go down to the meter and check our usage. The secretaries [Ellen and Laoise] have been working on a folder including all of our work over the past two years from our green codes and analyzing graphs for our electricity bills from 2020-2024 and our units used and total price.
We have also been working on our charts of Global Awareness surveys year 1 and 2. Two of the students [Mary and Anya] have been making pie charts and have been working very hard over the last week or two for each of the questions on the survey, they made a pie chart for year 1 and 2.
We are also trying to register in the “National Spring Clean” for 2024. Last year the Senior Room made slideshows [ three] on plastic water bottles. The projects included information like this…”With the recent scorching temperatures forming undeniable illustration of the climate crisis,consumers habits have been marked by attendant interest items relating to sustainability, all the fingers are pointing at plastic water bottles” when the slides were over the students in the Senior Room convinced Ms Nolan to go from plastic water bottles to reusable water bottles.
Over the years ever since the Green School Committee was introduced to Ballagh Ns the secretaries and members have been taking the minutes from the meetings, so now we are able to pull up meetings from 2021!
We have also been following The Green Schools Seven Step program , the steps include ..
1 Green Schools Committee.
2 Environmental Review .
3 Action Plan.
4 Monitoring and Evaluating.
5 Curriculum work.
6 Informing and Involving.
7 Green code.
So as you can see here in Ballagh Ns we are a very green school – check out our website to see our projects over the years,
Ballagh Ns is going green, come on this sustainable journey with us too!!!!
By your vice secretary,
Ellen Cox.
Hello! My name is Laoise.
I’m the Secretary on the Green Schools Committee. For the last two years, we have engaged with the topic ‘Global Citizenship Energy.’ Last year, we did projects like Wind Energy, Renewable Energy, Ocean Energy, Solar Energy and lots more. These projects were really fun and helped us understand energy more.
Every year we participate in the National Spring Clean project which we’ll be doing in the next few weeks. This is where we clean up the school and make it clean for our environment.
So what have we been doing lately?
For the last two weeks, the whole school has created their own sustainable cities. We were put into groups and it was a great success. They all look very cool and sustainable. Some of our cities have included the air to water system, the new reverse vending machines, solar panels, the Building Energy Rating (BER) system
and lots, lots more.
A few months ago, we installed our new ‘Smart Meter.’ The new meter is an excellent gadget. We now know the exact price and units used so no more estimating! The Education Officers and the Survey Managers go down every Wednesday and check the readings to see if there has been an increase or a decrease.
Every Tuesday, Ms Nolan and from Junior Infants to Fourth Class check the water meter to see if there has been an increase or a decrease in the readings also.
At the end of February, a man will come to assess our school and will notify us a few weeks later and tell us if we have done enough work to receive our Green Flag.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading my article.
Lots of fun and creatitivy in Ballagh NS as each pupil created their own St. Brigid Day Cross!
