Working for a cleaner and greener environment.

Our First Green Flag
Scoil na Mainistreach first achieved Green School Status in 2007 when we were awarded our first Green Flag. We worked hard to win this award by reducing the amount of litter and waste in our school and the school environment.
Since 2007 we all follow the three important steps of the Green School Code:
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
We separate all our waste. We have litter wardens and compost bins, we shred paper and collect and use recyclable materials in arts & crafts.
Our Green School Slogan for our first flag was:
For more photographs of our First Green flag see our Green school photo album under the photo album section of the website.
Our Second Green Flag
Soon after getting our first flag, we started working towards our second Green Flag by raising awareness of the issues surrounding energy consumption in our school. We started to monitor our energy bills carefully with a view to reducing the school’s carbon footprint and also the running costs of the school. We carried out the following projects in the classrooms:

• Classroom Temperature Surveys.
• Counting the litres of water the school uses.
• Energy Audit of Electricity Bills.
• Switch It Off  campaign for turning off lights, appliances etc.
• Electrical Appliance Survey.
• Energy Review including measuring the area of the school buildings to get an accurate reading of the energy used per square metre.

 
Following these surveys, the GSC drew up an action plan outlining our targets for reducing energy consumption. Every classroom has its own thermometer and this makes sure we turn on and off the heating as needed.  We make sure the heating is never on when the windows are open and all external doors close automatically to keep in the heat.  We also have an energy monitor which counts how much energy our school uses on a weekly basis.   In 2009 we were delighted to be awarded our second Green Flag for all of our efforts.
Our second Green School Slogan is:
Saving energy is cool in Quin Primary School
For more photographs of our Second Green flag see our Green School photo album in the Photo Album section of the website.
 
Our Third Green Flag
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​In 2011 we applied for retention of the Green School status and our third Green Flag for Water Conservation.
The following are some of the activities that helped us gain our third green flag:

• We placed water bottles in our toilet cisterns to reduce the amount of water we use with every flush.
• We appointed “water dudes” in each classroom to monitor and report our water conservation activities.
• We replaced our old school boiler for a newer energy efficient boiler under the Summer Works scheme.
• We replaced our turn taps with push down taps throughout the school.
• We used our Conversation Grant to put water displacement devices in the urinals.
• In Summer 2011 we replaced our old water tanks with modern energy efficient ones.

 
Once again all our hard work paid off; in March 2011 we were awarded our third green flag for water conservation.
Our Green School Slogan for Water Conservation is as follows:
Saving energy is cool in Quin Primary School
 
Our Green School Song
(To the air of The Flinstones)
Written by Ms Phillips and revised by Eimhin Dunne
Green School we’re a Green School
we’re a very happy family.
Here in Scoil na Mainistreach
We have earned ourselves a victory.
Reduce, Recycle and Reuse
we all know, just what bins to use.
Here in Scoil na Mainistreach
It’s a very healthy place to be.
Green School we’re a Green School
we’re into energy efficiency.
Here in Scoil na Mainistreach
We have power for another victory.
You won’t see any dripping taps in here
Wasting water is our biggest fear.
We’ve earned another green flag
Yes we’ll go down in history