Green Flag Award Day
Today we celebrated achieving our fourth Green Flag - the travel theme - by taking part in an online award ceremony along with hundreds of other schools in the country receiving their Green Flag awards at the same time. There was a big cheer from our pupils when "Cloonfour NS" came up on the screen! We followed this with our own flag-raising ceremony and photos of the Green-Schools committee and the whole school. Finally we celebrated with a pizza party to finish off a very happy day.
Action Day
On Tuesday 29th March we held our Action Day for our Green-Schools flag application. This was combined with a No Energy day as usual, so it meant that we had no heating or lighting on in school all day - fortunately it was a warm and sunny day so we didn't suffer too much! Both classrooms went on separate litter-picking walks along the roads close to school and pupils were amazed at the amount of rubbish they managed to collect! Pupils also completed various crosswords, word searches and colouring exercises all connected to the Green-Schools themes and the day culminated with a quiz asking questions not only about our current theme, travel, but also about our three previous flags: litter & waste, energy and water. Senior room pupils partnered with those from the junior room and there were five rounds of questions altogether. After counting the scores we found that three teams had drawn so we needed a tie-break to find the eventual winning team! Congratulations to the girls, who won an Easter egg each!
Renewal Visit
Our Travel Officer, Ciaran Hussey, called to school on Monday 14th March 2022 to carry out our Renewal Visit and assessment for our Travel Flag application. He spoke to the committee firstly and ensured that all members were knowledgeable about all aspects of our theme and then he chatted briefly to pupils in both rooms before posing for a photo with the committee members and co-ordinators. Our application is due to be submitted by Friday 1st April so we have a busy final few weeks ahead!
Walkability Audit
We recently welcomed back our Green-Schools Travel Officer, Ciaran Hussey, who came to school last week to complete a "walkability audit" with the committee members and then make a presentation to the rest of the senior room pupils. The audit analyses how pedestrian-friendly the road approaching the school is and will be submitted to the council making suggestions for improvements. To back this up, pupils also carried out a speed test on traffic passing the school over a half hour period using a proper speed gun which was great fun!
Hopefully our efforts will persuade the council that changes need to be made outside our school to make it safer for everyone!
Hopefully our efforts will persuade the council that changes need to be made outside our school to make it safer for everyone!
New Committee
After inviting our students to apply for the vacant roles on our Green-Schools committee, we received lots of application letters and so our co-ordinators decided to hold interviews for the positions. Each candidate was called into the 'Interview Room' to talk for a few minutes about their reasons for wanting to be involved with the committee. The standard was extremely high and the co-ordinators had a difficult task choosing who to select but eventually decided on three new committee members to join our existing one from last year. Congratulations to everybody!
Our new Travel slogan
One of the first tasks for our new committee was to sort out a new slogan for our Travel theme. We invited pupils to submit their suggestions and the children in the Senior room voted for their favourite. After a draw between two slogans, the committee voted again and our new Green-Schools slogan was announced: "DON'T WASTE FUEL, WALK TO SCHOOL."
December update
Pupils in the Senior room recently attended an online Travel Conference with the theme "Ireland's 2040 Vision". This conference was filled with talks and activities from speakers with backgrounds in sustainable travel, urban planning and design and the arts. There was a demonstration on how to make and colour a 3D sustainable city which the children enjoyed completing after the conference and all agreed it was a very enjoyable morning.
Our new theme - Travel
Having received our third Green-Schools flag, we are now embarking on our fourth flag, which is the Travel themed flag. Our co-ordinators visited both classrooms to talk to the pupils about forming a new Green-Schools Committee and invited them to send in their applications by letter, email or video. The standard of applications was really high and so the co-ordinators decided to hold interviews for the positions and each candidate was called into the 'Interview Room' to talk for a few minutes about their reasons for wanting to be involved with the committee.
This also proved to be an impossible task as everyone was very impressive and so Liz and Jeanette decided to form two committees for this year, made up of three members in each. Our first committee will run from November until the end of February and the second one will take over from March until June.
Congratulations to our new Green-Schools Committees: Oscar, Hazel, Debbie, Grace, Simon and Cody!
This also proved to be an impossible task as everyone was very impressive and so Liz and Jeanette decided to form two committees for this year, made up of three members in each. Our first committee will run from November until the end of February and the second one will take over from March until June.
Congratulations to our new Green-Schools Committees: Oscar, Hazel, Debbie, Grace, Simon and Cody!
Presentation of Green-Schools Flag
As already advised, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we weren't able to receive our new flag and certificate at an Awards Ceremony as in previous years but instead these were sent to us by post. However we are planning to hold our own special flag-raising ceremony in school in the Spring and hope that our previous committee members who have gone on to Secondary school will come back and help us make this a special day!
Green-Schools Flag renewal success!
We received an email today with some exciting news, letting us know that our application for the renewal of our Green-Schools flag under the Water theme has been successful and that the team at Green Schools Ireland were very impressed with our application! 😀 So we'd like to say a big WELL DONE to all our pupils and staff and in particular to our Green-Schools committee - Isabelle, Maddison, Katelyn and Grace (and Darragh last year) - for all your hard work in obtaining this great achievement for our school!
Unfortunately, due to the current situation, it won't be possible to hold the usual Awards Ceremony to be presented with our flag and certificate, but we are planning a flag-raising ceremony in school just as soon as we can, which will be a day to remember! Congratulations everyone!! 👏👏👏
Unfortunately, due to the current situation, it won't be possible to hold the usual Awards Ceremony to be presented with our flag and certificate, but we are planning a flag-raising ceremony in school just as soon as we can, which will be a day to remember! Congratulations everyone!! 👏👏👏
Water Flag Assessment Visit
On 27th February we welcomed Bernadine, our Green-Schools Assessor, prior to the submission of our Water Flag application next month. She spoke at length to our Green-Schools Committee, who excelled themselves in showing off their knowledge of all our activities in pursuit of our flag - well done girls. Then she paid a visit to our Senior room and was amazed at the knowledge and interest shown by all of the pupils! We will be submitting our application by the end of March and should hear back after the Easter holidays whether we have been successful in obtaining our third flag. 🤞
Green-Schools Assessment Visit - February 27th 2020
The date is set for our Assessment Visit! Jeanette informed us that Bernadine will visit our school on February 27th to see are we on track for receiving our 3rd flag. Everyone is very busy and talking about all the different tasks we have done in pursuit of this flag. Also our school is once again taking part in the national Irish Water poster competition. The theme this year is "Let's take climate action for water" and to date we have received some fabulous posters. The closing date is March 6th.
Green-Schools update January 2020
Our Green-Schools Committee are once again very busy. We are fast approaching the date for our assessment visit for our 3rd flag, which is the water flag. We need to update our action plan, take further water readings for 1 week and Jeanette will be very busy submitting our application. The committee spoke to each classroom and reminded all the children about the different bins and what we should put in each one. The Junior Infants are wonderful and are now asking the Senior children to wash out their yogurt pots so that they can be recycled. Well done everyone! The water readings are very positive and we have made great progress in the amount of water usage in our school. The Senior classroom documented all water use on bar charts and these are displayed on our Green-Schools Notice Board. We will keep you posted on our assessment visit date. Watch this space!
Green-Schools Day - Oct 22nd 2019
Tuesday Oct 22nd 2019 was a different sort of day in Cloonfour N.S. Our Green Schools Committee held a "No Energy/Green School's Day" as part of our Green Schools Flag application, so we had no heating or lighting or anything electrical on in school all day! We had lots of fun activities going on to help us keep warm, including a litter-picking walk around the local roads where pupils were amazed at the amount of rubbish that we collected! This was followed by a Green Schools themed quiz organised by two of our past pupils who have returned to their old school for 2 weeks as part of their TY work experience. It was great to see them back. 😀
More news from Green-Schools
Today we welcomed our new PRO, Grace, to our Green Schools Committee and members gave an impromptu lesson to our new infants, telling them what goes in each of the three classroom waste bins. This was followed by a similar reminder to pupils in the Senior room to make sure that we are up-to-date with our Green-Schools themes before we apply for our third flag next Spring.
Green-Schools Sept 2019
Once again we are back working on Green Schools. This year we will apply for our third flag - the water flag. Firstly we have to replace Darragh on our committee. Darragh was our wonderful PRO and is now in secondary school. There is great interest in this position. Letters of application can be forwarded to Jeanette or Liz and interviews will be held. We are also planning a "GREEN SCHOOL DAY". Watch this space for further updates.
Green-Schools Update May 2019
We are once again very busy organising various events. We are happy to report that our water consumption has decreased greatly since the start of the school year. This is mainly due to repairs to a water leak and also all staff and students are more aware of saving water. We have posters through out the school reminding us. Water monitors are also keeping a close eye on everyone! We are progessing very well with our application for the our third flag. Our Green School Notice board reflects this. We will keep you all posted on the events ahead.
Water Workshop
We recently welcomed Lisa McDaniel who came to our school to present a very informative Water Workshop as part of our Green-Schools flag application process. The children learnt a lot about our water usage and had great fun with the water card activity, trying to work out how much water we use at home in the kitchen and bathroom!
Green-Schools & Irish Water Poster Competition
We had a great response from all students for the Green Schools Irish Water National competition. The theme was "Conserve our Water". The standard was very high and let's hope our school is successful. Well done everyone for taking part.
Green-Schools Poster Competition
We recently held a competition among our pupils to design a poster based on any of our Green Schools themes - litter and waste, energy or water (or all three!) We were amazed by the number of posters that were entered and by the quality of them all - poor Ms. Fannon had the unenviable task of picking 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners! After much consideration she finally chose the three winning posters whose artists received some fabulous prizes - congratulations to them and to everyone who entered!
Green Schools Ireland are also running a national poster competition in the Spring based on the Water theme so pupils will be able to enter their posters into this as well.
Green Schools Ireland are also running a national poster competition in the Spring based on the Water theme so pupils will be able to enter their posters into this as well.
Update from Green Schools Committee Nov 2018
The committee currently are very busy. Jeanette and Liz attended a meeting in Roscommon County Council offices and found out lots of information about the Water flag. The committee now meets every week and our first task was to decide on our slogan for the water flag. This year we decided that the committee would choose a slogan. After much debate we decided on "SLOW THE FLOW SAVE H2O". We are taking daily records from the water meter. We also have carried out an environmental review. This involved documenting all the water features within our school, for example how many sinks, toilets, radiators etc. Results of this will be displayed later on our notice board. We are organising a poster competition. This competition is open to all children in the school. The task is to design a poster on the Green School themes i.e. a poster about reduce, reuse, recycle, energy or water theme. The closing date for entries is November 23rd 2018. All posters should be A4 size and we have been informed there will be "FABULOUS" prizes for the winners. Details of this competition are also on the notice board.
Our new Green Schools Committee
We had lots of applications from our pupils eager to be on the committee for our latest Green-Schools Flag and the Co-ordinators had a really hard job deciding who to choose. In the end they decided to hold interviews for the positions and each candidate was called into the 'Interview Room' to talk for a few minutes about their reasons for wanting to be involved with the committee and their ideas for our Water theme.
Finally the new committee was chosen: congratulations to our new Chairperson, PRO, Secretary and Assistant Secretary. Darragh, Isabelle, Katelyn and Maddison.
Finally the new committee was chosen: congratulations to our new Chairperson, PRO, Secretary and Assistant Secretary. Darragh, Isabelle, Katelyn and Maddison.
Starting work on our new Green Schools flag
Having received our second Green Schools flag in June, we are now embarking on our third flag, which is the Water themed flag. Our co-ordinators have advertised the positions for the Green Schools Committee and the applications are pouring in! The co-ordinators will have a tough time selecting the positions as the applications are of a very high standard. Watch this space....
Green Flag Award Ceremony May 2018
Our Green-Schools committee travelled to the Hodson Bay Hotel in Athlone on Wednesday 23rd May to be presented with our second Green Flag for the Energy theme. Everyone had a fabulous day and enjoyed their lovely lunch! We will be having our flag-raising ceremony at the school in a few weeks time.
Congratulations!!
A big WELL DONE to our fabulous Green-School's committee and the rest of our pupils as we have been notified today by An Taisce that our application for the Energy theme flag has been successful! We will be attending the Awards Ceremony in May to receive our flag so will be posting plenty of photos of that momentous day!
Online Application
"The Green School's Committee have been extra busy over the last few weeks. The deadline for submitting our application was March 16th. Over the past 2 years we have worked very hard in our pursuit of our second flag - "The Energy Flag". Cara and Kayla worked on submitting our action plan and Jeanette did wonderful work in submitting our entire online application. We are very happy to report that we have decreased our electricity usage by 20% and our oil usage by 8%. This is a wonderful achievement and culminates in the efforts of all staff and students. Along with this we have been very active in our continued efforts with our litter and waste theme. Hopefully all our hard work will pay off and our application will be successful. Watch this space!
Green Schools Flag Assessment Visit
On Tuesday 13th February we welcomed Suzanne Dempsey, Environmental Education Officer with Roscommon County Council, to our school. Suzanne was paying us a renewal visit as part of the application process for our second Green-Schools flag and she was very impressed with our pupils' knowledge of the Energy theme and our continued efforts with the Litter and Waste theme. We should hear whether we have been successful with our application by the time we return to school after the Easter holidays, so keep your fingers crossed!
Guest Speaker - February 2018
A big thank you to Martina Butler - our guest speaker who visited our school on Monday 5th February 2018. She gave a very informed and interesting presentation on energy. All the children participated in a very lively presentation with plenty of questions from all students. She spoke about energy, climate change, renewable energy and the children participated in helping Martina make "our very own power station". We got to meet "Guzzler" and "polar bear", which highlighted what simple steps we can all make to reduce our energy consumption at home and in school. Well done to all. Have a look at our lovely photos from the presentation.
Update January 2018
The Green School Committee are very busy at the moment. We met last week and Jeanette informed us that our guest speaker, Martina will visit our school on Monday 5th Feb to give a presentation in relation to our Energy flag. The committee also were very busy analyzing the energy pledges and they have displayed the top energy saving tips for school and home on the Green School notice board. Check this out! We also have our inspection by Suzanne coming up on February 13th. We are continuing to monitor energy levels and our energy monitors are doing great work reminding everyone about saving energy. Watch this space and see will Cloonfour National School be the proud recipients of our 2nd green flag!
December 2017
We held our final meeting for 2017 on Friday 8th December. Firstly our article on our "No Energy Day" was published in the Roscommon Herald along with our lovely photos. Well done to Cara and Kayla on the lovely report they wrote. Also we entered the Halloween up-cycled mask competition run by Roscommon County Council. While we did not have any winners our masks were very creative, made solely from recyclable materials. Well done everyone, the standard was very high so better luck next year. At this meeting we decided we will meet in early January to follow up on our action plan in pursuit of our energy flag. We hope to have a guest speaker visit our school and speak on energy. We will also complete our online application. In the meantime everyone is aware of saving energy and also reducing waste and litter. The message from the committee is KEEP IT UP! Energy and waster monitors are continuing to do a great job. We will then await our inspection and hopefully all our hard work will pay off. Watch this space for more information on a busy few months ahead for all at Cloonfour National School in 2018.
Green Halloween Up-cycled Mask Competition
Roscommon County Council are inviting all primary school pupils to enter their Green Halloween Up-cycled Mask Competition, to celebrate the re-use month of October. Please see the flyer below for full details:
No Energy Day 29th September 2017
We are very busy this week preparing for our No Energy Day which is taking place on Sept 29th 2017. The Committee held a meeting and composed a letter informing parents about the day. We also made signs to remind staff and students not to turn on lights, or heating. Staff are reminded that the kitchen facilities are banned. We made a beautiful poster informing our friends and families about the day. Friday 29th will be a very busy day where we will have a lot of activities happening in the school. We have a recycling quiz organised, we plan to do PE in the hall to help us keep warm and we are all wondering how we will survive without our computers and interactive white boards! Check out the photos of the day on our Events page ....
The day turned out to be a big success and everybody enjoyed themselves.
Yours sincerely,
The Green Schools Committee
- Our Green Schools committee members, Kayla and Cara, wrote a report about our No Energy Day which you can read below. This is also going to be sent into the local newspapers along with some of the photos, so look out for us in print soon!
- No Energy Day
The day turned out to be a big success and everybody enjoyed themselves.
Yours sincerely,
The Green Schools Committee
Green School September 2017
Voting for new member of
Green Schools Committee
Last Wednesday 6th September, all the students gathered in Ms. Coyne's room for a Green Schools Meeting. We had the task of electing a new member to our committee. After a nail biting voting procedure we would like to congratulate Cody on
his election. Well done Cody, he now joins our existing members who are Cara, Kayla and Debbie. The committee will meet on Thur 21st September and set about the tasks that we need to complete this year. Without doubt a very busy year ahead for all the school! The new Green School Committee are Chairperson - Cara, Secretary - Kayla, Asst Secretary - Debbie and PRO - Cody.
his election. Well done Cody, he now joins our existing members who are Cara, Kayla and Debbie. The committee will meet on Thur 21st September and set about the tasks that we need to complete this year. Without doubt a very busy year ahead for all the school! The new Green School Committee are Chairperson - Cara, Secretary - Kayla, Asst Secretary - Debbie and PRO - Cody.
Green School Update June 2017
We held our final meeting on Thursday 29th June 2017. We were very happy to report that both the Longford Leader and the Roscommon Herald posted beautiful pictures and a write up of our Spring Clean day. This was a great success. It is school holiday time now so when we return in September we will be actively involved in our quest for our second flag. Watch this space for further updates and a huge thank you to our hard working committee. Remember during the long Summer holidays "Last out, lights out, Cloonfour are very bright".
Spring Clean Day: May 5th 2017
We held our Spring Clean Day on Friday May 5th. While the weather was sunny and dry, it was a little windy. The committee had made badges for each committee member with their role printed on them. We also made signs, which read “litter and waste monitor”. We used litter pickers, gloves and bin bags. First we picked up the litter on the school grounds and we were very pleased to find very little! Then we left the school and picked up litter on the approaching roads. The school was divided into four groups with each group collecting a big bag full of rubbish. We admired the countryside and saw lovely horses. We all enjoyed the day. Our aim is to keep our school clean and tidy!! Check out below some lovely photos from our day.
April 2017
Staff and students alike are very busy with our Green-Schools Action Plan. Our Green-School’s Notice Board now shows our Action Plan and we are glad to say a lot of our actions have been completed. Check this out as you pass the notice board! All efforts are now in place preparing for our Spring Clean Day, the date of which is Friday May 5th. The committee informed all students and staff of this date and we have been busy making posters and signs reminding everyone about this day. This is to renew our Litter & Waste flag which we were awarded in 2016. Students have been reminded to bring in any used batteries for recycling. Watch this space for an update on our Spring Clean Day.
March 2017
The Green Schools Committee have been very busy during the last few weeks. Our energy monitors are busy reminding all students and staff to turn off lights, close doors, etc. The Junior Room completed lovely posters reminding staff and students of this and they are displayed through out the school. The Junior Room have been busy doing an appliance audit. This involved counting all the electrical appliances through out the school. This was great fun as we discovered we had more appliances than originally thought! The Senior Room had a more difficult task of recording how much energy each appliance use. Ms Coyne and her maths wizards were busy calculating! We continue to record meter readings weekly. Our next step is to draw up our action plan and document all our findings. Our Green Schools notice board now shows a picture of our hard working committee!
Our Green-Schools Committee
September 2016
We set up a new committee in September 2016, as we had to say goodbye to Matthew and Adam because they have now started secondary school. All the students voted and a new committee was set up. The members are Cara, Kayla, Mary and Debbie. We are now working on our 2nd flag – Energy.
Jeanette and Liz,our green school co-ordinators, attended an information meeting in Roscommon County Council offices. They found out lots of information and it will be a great help in achieving our Energy flag. The school voted on our new slogan for the energy theme which is “Last out, lights out, Cloonfour are very bright”. At this stage we have updated our Green schools notice board. We are holding meetings to discuss and plan how to achieve the Energy flag. Watch this space for more information!
Jeanette and Liz,our green school co-ordinators, attended an information meeting in Roscommon County Council offices. They found out lots of information and it will be a great help in achieving our Energy flag. The school voted on our new slogan for the energy theme which is “Last out, lights out, Cloonfour are very bright”. At this stage we have updated our Green schools notice board. We are holding meetings to discuss and plan how to achieve the Energy flag. Watch this space for more information!
Green Flag Award Ceremony May 2015
Two of our Green-Schools committee members, Adam and Matthew, travelled to the Radisson Blu Hotel in Athlone recently with co-ordinators Liz and Jeanette to be presented with our first Green Flag for "Litter and Waste".