Educate Together pupils go Green and secure fourth Flag
THE PUPILS at Wexford’s Educate Together primary school put their best foot forward recently when they held a Day of Action as part of their campaign to secure a Green Flag for Travel.
As it happened, the school had received word prior to the day that they had been successful so that day was as much a celebration as an educational event. Two of the school’s teachers, Aideen Kehoe and Aillen Kelly, are members of the Green School committee. Ms Kelly said they had held off on holding the day of action in the hope of getting fine weather which, thankfully, they did.
The day started with a Park and Stride initiative which saw parents park their cars at Clonard Church and walk their kids to the school, which is in Whitemill Industrial Estate, from there.
In total, 113 of the 170 pupils enrolled walked to school, along with six staff members.
The walk was followed by a health breakfast in the school with fruit supplied by Pettitt’s SuperValu in St Aidan’s.
After that, the fifth and sixth class kids met Thomas McDonald from the Wexford Car Centre. He brought along a Nissan Leaf car, which is an electric model, and spoke to the kids about the technology and how the motor industry was moving towards electric vehicles.
Noeleen Doyle, travel officer with Green Schools Ireland spoke to third and fourth class, as well as junior and senior infants about the Travel Flag and provided fun games and activities, like travel-based snakes and ladders. In first and second class, two grandparents spoke to the group about how travel had changed since when they were children.
The last activity of the day was an aerial photograph, taken by Frank Flanagan who sent a drone up to record video and images. The pupils stood in the formation of the word ‘travel’ which was then photographed from the air.
Ms Kelly explained that this was the school’s fourth flag, having already secured flags for recycling, water and energy. She pointed out that not only did the school have to work to secure the new flag but also had to monitor the structures in place to retain the other flags as well.
The school will raise their fourth Green Flag in the coming weeks.