Water Poster Competition 2022

All of our pupils are busy working on this year’s Water Poster Competition on the theme of ‘Groundwater – Our National Treasure’. Best of luck to all the boys and girls – we can’t wait to see the finished products!

 

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Our wildflower garden in full bloom has many minibeast visitors! And it is such a beautiful addition to our school.

 

Green fingered 1st and 2nd class

First and Second class enjoyed planting a selection of tomatoes, carrots, peas and lettuce. They took it in turns to water the plants each day as they grew and got to take them home. Thank you to Cecilia for helping the children to plant and care for the plants.

Water Poster Finalists April 2021

Congratulations to our Water poster finalists – it was a difficult decision choosing winners from each class. Best of luck to all the boys and girls!

Nature Detective Photography Competition

The boys and girls have been busy working as Nature Detectives over the last 4 weeks. While they were out and about they were keeping their eyes peeled for anything interesting in nature. They found signs of spring everywhere. Some beautiful flowers, baby animals and lots more!

Here are a selection of the finalists:

Congratualtions to our winners in each Class:

Junior and Senior Infants: Alishka and TJ

First and Second Class: Ryan and Emily

Third and Fourth Class: Rosie and Jessica

Fifth and Sixth Class: Mary-Lou and Sophie P.

A huge thank you to all boys and girls who took part, raising awareness of the importance of Biodiversity. thank you to parents for sending in the photos and facilitating all the nature walks and exploring nature with the children.

Thank you to Dara Wyer from Kildare County Council for judging the competition, he had a very difficult job choosing from the fantastic entries!

Feet First Friday Launch

Friday the 24th March marked the beginning of our weekly walk, cycle, scoot or carpool to school day! We started off the day with some music and welcomed everyone with a cheer. With the sun shining and big smiles from children and adults alike, it was a fantastic start to the day.

Karen Moore, our travel officer, joined us shortly after to begin our scooter safety workshops. The children loved scooting around the yard through obstacle courses, racing each other and learning how to do an emergency stop!

After lunch, we had a short assembly to announce which class had won the competition. Well done to first and second class who had the highest percentage of children that traveled to school an environmentally friendly way! It was a tight competition and the other classes were very close behind!

A huge thank you to all of you who made this day a success! All pupils and staff were delighted with the amount of families that participated. A special thank you to those brought in and shared their scooters with others for the day – the workshops couldn’t have gone ahead without you!

We look forward to your continued support with Feet First Friday!

Poster Competition Winners

Congratulations to the following children for their fantastic entries. Their posters helped us to promote Feet First Friday and certainly brighten up our corridors!

 

Travel Flag

Since September, our Travel Committee have been busy learning about how to make our school community a greener place to be! We have been working closely with our travel officer, Karen Moore, to complete an Environmental Review and our Action Plan.

During our Environmental Review, we discovered that it is not safe for many of us to walk to school from a number of different locations due to the lack of a proper footpath, zebra crossings, etc. Another major concern is the speed of the traffic going past our school at all times of the day.

Using this information, we began our Action Plan. Due to the location of our school, it is not practical for many of us to walk, scoot or cycle to school and this was taken into consideration when drawing up our plan.  However, we did come up with ways that we can make Kilberry greener!

The Travel Committee aims to:

• Raise awareness about how burning petrol and diesel is damaging our environment
• Encourage families to walk, cycle or scoot to school through our weekly green competition ‘Feet First Friday’
• Encourage families that cannot walk, cycle or scoot to school to use other green modes of travel such as carpooling, park and stride or the school bus
• Encourage the wider school community to use greener modes of transport as often as possible and not just to and from school
• Raise Awareness about Road Safety

Please take a look at the following video for more information about the Travel Flag.

https://youtu.be/szkYL_KMddM

 

 

 

 

Be Water Smart! 

 

We are currently working towards getting our third Green Flag for Water.

To conserve water in our school, we:

• Use rain water, which is collected by our water butt, to wash paintbrushes, do science experiments, water our plants and more!
• Check to ensure that taps are always turned off properly – a dripping tap can waste a lot of water!
• Placed 4  x 250ml bottles of water into each toilet cistern – every time a toilet is flushed, 1 litre of water is saved

The 4th and 5th class members of the Water Committee recently attended the Green-Schools Water Forum which took place in the Osprey Hotel in Naas. They shared their ideas with other Water Committees around the county and learned many new water saving tips to bring back to our school. A great day out was had by all!

 

Some tips for saving water at home:

 

• turn off the taps when washing your teeth – you can save 6 litres of water.
• take a shower not a bath – don’t use power showers as a 10 minute shower uses as much water as three baths!
• fill the kettle for the right amount – you can save energy as well!
• use waste water from dish washing to water your plants
• never use a hose pipe in your garden
• always fix leaking taps
• use your dish washer and washing machine only when they are full thus saving energy as well!
• visit the Irish Water website www.water.ie to learn more about being water smart in the home.

 

Do the Earth a favour, be an energy saver! 

 

Remember, the little changes will go a long way in conserving energy.

 

 

Tips for Energy Conservation

• Turn off appliances when they are not in use. Do not leave them on standby. Standby can use up to 20% on some inefficient appliances.

• Buy A rated appliances for your Home. This can be a huge saving of €150 annually on your electricity bill.

• Turn down your heating – by even 1 degree Celsius and it will save you up to €150 per year of your money. A 10% percent saving.

• Buy energy efficient light bulbs (CFLs) instead of traditional bulbs – they use 1/5th energy and last up to 10 times as long. They will pay for themselves in under a year and from then on they are saving you on your electricity bill

• Fit a lagging jacket – lagging your hot water tank will keep the water hotter for longer and will have paid for itself in a few months.

• Don’t overfill your kettle – boil only as much water as you need.

• Walk or cycle to work instead of driving – it costs nothing and it’s healthy for you.

• Use the clothesline when possible – Tumble dryers use a lot of energy.

• Buy Local Produce – A considerable amount of energy is consumed transporting produce around the globe, reduce this by sourcing food form a local farmers market and also help the local economy.

 

 

In March 2010, Kilberry National School elected it’s first Green Schools Committee. The entire school community made great efforts to turn ‘green’ in an effort to be awarded our first green flag for Litter and Waste.

Collections for clothes and mobile phone to be recycled are regularly organised.

We are also very lucky to have been visited by many guest speakers and people who have given workshops.

 

For National Tree Day in October 2012 children from 1st-6th classes enjoyed a visit to Emo Court.

 

Many thanks to Catherine Casey who helped the children paint our Green Code in the school shed. It was great fun!

 

 

Green Code
Put waste in the correct bin.
Recycle as much as possible.
Keep the school clean and tidy.
Take care of plants and trees.

 

It was a very exciting day in Croke Park, last June,  when we received our first Green Flag for Litter and waste.

 

 

Everyone in Kilberry was very proud to raise the Green Flag!

 

 

As our Green Slogan says;

 

The Green School’s Committee put together a Green Tips booklet last year and we hope they have proven to be helpful in