Green Schools Flag is an environmental awareness programme which helps thousands of children across Europe to effect and lead change in their communities. We are required to complete seven steps to fulfil our application and step one was to elect a committee. We completed that step this September. Each child in the school who wished to be part of the committee was asked to campaign for their place and votes were cast. A representative from each of the Senior Classes was chosen and two representatives from the Junior Room were elected. We kept a close eye on our gender quotas!

Following our first committee meeting our minds became quickly focused on attacking step two: carrying out an environmental review. Our aim here was to identify the initial problems in the school regarding litter and waste. We completed a litter checklist. On the 23^rd of September we also carried out our first waste audit. 325 grams of paper was collected in the school that day and for that reason we have chosen Criterion 3 ‘Amount of paper collected in the school or classroom’ to focus on for bringing about change. An Taisce have received our registration for the Litter Less Campaign and we look forward to hearing more from Caoimhe O’Brien Moran about what is involved and receiving our grant cheque for equipment for monitoring waste in October.

We also look forward to welcoming Calvin to our school to present his Recycle Magic workshop to the children. Busy days ahead!