Introducing (not quite all of) Monkstown Educate Together’s Green School Committee!

1st class (A) Anna, Johnny, Lainey, Lennan
               (B) Eli, Holly, Eva, Sam
2nd class(A)Yang, Conor, Marlene, Elsie
               (B)Isabelle, Eva, Mikey, Eoghan
3rd class(A)Oscar, Emma, Theo, Sam
               (B)James, Niamh, Liam, Lauren
4th class      Lauren, Saskia, Marcus, Finn
5th class      Eabha, Manus, Sophie, Ellen
6th class      Lucy, Kaylum, Dino

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We know you know, don’t mean to nag

But walk to school to keep our green flag

 

Stad! Ná léim isteach sa charr!!

 

 

 

Work continues on our 4^th green flag

The theme for our new programme is transport.

Between 2004-6 we worked towards the green flag with the theme Reduce Reuse Recycle

Between 2006-8 we completed the theme energy.

Between 2008-11 we did everything in our power to conserve water and were awarded the green flag water.

Our current theme is a very interesting one. We are interested in reducing the number of car journeys that our families take on a daily, weekly, and on an annual basis. We are concentrating on specific weekends and on specific Wednesdays to see if we could get families to walk,cycle, take public transport instead of car journeys.

We will examine the health benefits of more exercise, the environmental benefit of reduced car emissions, and the overall wellbeing of being in the fresh air.

It is a theme that depends to a huge extent, on parents getting behind our aims and supporting our efforts to encourage children to walk to school if at all possible. We appreciate the ‘crazily hectic’ nature of most family mornings and so we have asked for support for only 3 Wednesdays between now and the end of this school year and one a month the school year 2012-13. We have identified 2‘drop-off’ sites, where busy parents can simply and safely ‘drop-off’ their children into the charge of walking-bus adult leaders, and head off to work. We have also picked these sites because parents can park and walk with their children. The sites are approximately a 10 min walk from school. We then count how many children walked that morning and compare it to our initial audit of school transport, taken on Nov 11^th 2011. Our aim is to reduce the number of either occasional or regular car journeys, by 10%. It is an achievable goal, and just think how much easier it would be no to have to face the traffic chaos of the METNS site each morning.

METNS WANTS TO WOW!!!!!!!

O.k, so WOWing is walking to school on a Wednesday or at the very least, park-and-striding. We also want ot COW!!!! Cycling is just as healthy and environmentally friendly. We have also identified specific weekends where we will hope to swap one car journey at the weekends for a walk.

Our WOW /COW dates for the year are

Sept 26th

Oct 24th

Nov 28th

Dec 19th

Jan 23rd

Feb 23rd

Mar 23rd

April 23rd

May 22nd

June 22nd

 Bí slantúil, bí ag siúl  x 100

The children in 6th did a walkability audit to identify park-and-stride sites for busy parents. the sites will be manned by parents who will safely walk the children to school. Here are the sites

 

This site is on the Upper Glenageary Road, half way between the Honeypark Junction and the Glenegeary roundabout.

This site is on Kill Avenue,  in the Deans Grange business park, (NCT centre at the back). It is just before Kill Of The Grange Church. It is a pay to park centre €1 an hour. You can use it as a drop off site.

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Adult friendly maps of the sites are on show inside the school door.  It would be great to pick a convenient site and Park-and-Stride as a family, or drop the children off and go to wook safe in the knowledge that your children will walk to school safely.

                            

 

6th class, complete with clipboards, walk to find suitable park-and-stride sites.

Yet another aspect to our fabulous Green School Programme……Our Fabulous Garden

 

We know you know,we don’t mean to nag

Walk to school, to keep our green flag

 

Here is our first WOW MORNING, February 22nd 2012

 

Ms Stokes’ 3rd class did an amazing traffic survey around the school, at the Baker’s Corner intersection, The Dean’s Grange intersection and the Honey Park intersection. They discovered that every hour approximately 2,500 vehicles travel near our school, only 10% of which have more than one person in them. See the fabulous display of the vehicle count, outside the class.

 Guess What!! We have won a Transport Award!

METNS has been awarded 2nd place in efforts made to encourage and participate in Park-n-stride to school.

2nd place in the whole of Ireland (primary and secondary)

On April 23rd, Finn Brooks, Ellen O Hara, Lucy Murphy, Ann Marie and Ms Kealy headed off to Croke Park to collect our award. We were so honoured to be one of the leading schools in Ireland in our efforts to come to school in a sustainable way. Well done to the parents who are making a big effort in the busy mornings.

 

 

 We knew you knew,   didn’t mean to nag

You walked to school and kept our flag!

We were asked how our green flag themes have  been integrated into our school life, and this is how we answered……

Our code was agreed, through the class representatives bringing the conversation to every class in the school. The representatives were charged to bring back to the meeting, points that their particular class had felt to be important.
Many of the points came up in many different classes, and we simplified the basic themes. We wanted to make the code simple and to the point. We wanted to make it clear, and easy for the youngest child to understand. The point about enjoying our environment as we travelled sustainably, came from the infant classes. They made us realize how much we could be part of our community and how observant we could become about weather/seasons/nature and our neighbours, by documenting their walks to school.
Our four green codes are so completely integrated into the fabric of our life in METNS, that they inform every decision we make. We want to be recognized as a school that opens children’s lives up to, the beauty of the world around them, the cycle of life and their part in keeping the planet and our local environment as clean as possible. We want them to understand that each little decision they make can have either a positive or a negative effect on the environment and that each individual can play a big part. We LOVE our ethos and the difference it has made to our thinking.

 In Sept 2011, for every one child walking/cycling/park-n-striding to school, 2 were coming all the way by car. Now FOR EVERY ONE CHILD COMING ALL THE WAY IN THE CAR, WE HAVE 2 CHILDREN WALKING/CYCLING/SCOOTING AND PARK-N-STRIDING. We are changing behaviours!!!

By February 2013 we have hit targets of

percentage of all children travelling to school by car       37%
percentage travelling by sustainable methods
( includes park-n-stride)                                                   63%

The Green Team go to Killiney with Ciara ( Senan and Dearbhail’s mom ) to investigate trees , for National Tree Week

 

 Bí slantúil, bí ag siúl  x 100