Welcome to our Green Schools Committee page!

Our Green Schools Committee is made up of students from 3rd to 6th class. At the beginning of each school year, the children interested in being on the committee are invited to write a short passage stating their interests and reasons for wanting to be the representatives for their school. Children are chosen from each of the classes from 3rd to 6th.

Meet the New Committee (2021/2022)

The role of the members is to oversee the maintenance of the green flags already achieved for litter and waste and water and energy conservation. They also began to collect ideas and organise surveys to decide what their targets would be for the renewal of the travel flag.

The committee would like to thank everyone for the huge effort being made to make the roads of Knockanean a safer, more child-friendly place to travel. There are many young children who are making huge strides on their bikes. We all had to start somewhere so your patience and understanding is so important for us. If we slow down we are not only reducing the amount of CO2 emissions being released into our environment, creating less pollution and most importantly making our roads safer for our children to use.

Outline of some current activities:

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1. At the beginning of 2019 the committee were given tasks to ensure that light switches in rooms were turned off when not needed ( lunch breaks, P.E etc). They inspected the bins after lunch breaks to ensure that the litter and waste was being deposited in the correct bins. Classes that were making a concerted effort were rewarded at the end of the week.
2. A group of children in 4th class at the time worked together on a project for the mini-scientist competition to create beeswax wraps. The aim was to eliminate the use of cling film and tin foil use in the school. The beeswax wraps were on sale for all the children in school. It was a huge success and the Green Schools Committee noted at the time that cling film and tin foil were no longer being used by children at school. It was a fantastic community effort by parents , teachers and the wraps were even sold to a few local companies.
3. The committee directed their energies in late 2019 to gather ideas for working on the travel flag. After consultation with Róisín Garvey who was then the Green Schools Coordinator for Clare, it was decided that a walking bus would help to alleviate the traffic congestion outside our school in the mornings. On the 14th January 2020 the walking bus to the road. For the following weeks the bus would meet at Fahy Hall and walk to school. At the end of each week a Golden Boot award was given to the class that had made the best effort to walk cycle and car-pool to school. The initiative was a resounding success and there was a considerable reduction in traffic outside the school. Unfortunately, Covid put an abrupt end to our efforts.
4. Having returned to school in September 2020, Covid guidelines meant that our walking bus could not take place. The committee had to focus on working with their own class bubble. Each class group has made their own effort to conserve energy and water and keep a close eye on waste in their own classrooms.
5. When we returned to school after the recent lockdown, the committee met and it was decided to go ahead and try to focus once again on renewing the travel flag. Since our return, a primary focus has been on a traffic calming campaign to keep our roads safe for the children cycling and walking to school.