St. Patrick's National School

Green Schools is an international environmental education programme, designed to promote and acknowledge whole school action for the environment.
Green-Schools offers a well-defined, controllable way to take environmental issues from the curriculum and apply them to the day to day running of a school.
This process helps students to recognise the importance of environmental issues and take them more seriously in their personal and home lives.
Green-Schools is run by An Taisce in co-operation with Local Authorities throughout Ireland and is sponsored by Coca-Cola Bottlers Ireland Ltd. Green-Schools is an initiative of FEE - Foundation for Environmental Education and is referred to internationally as Eco-Schools. At present there are 23 countries operating the programme in Europe and beyond
In Ireland there is currently over 1150 Primary and Secondary schools participating in the programme, that's over a quarter of all schools in the country! 150 schools have implemented the programme successfully and have been awarded the Green Flag.
Green-Schools is a long-term programme, the award needs to be renewed every two years. The award is in the form of a Green Flag that can be flown outside the school or displayed in a foyer. Award winners will also receive a certificate, a logo to display on headed notepaper, and other publicity material.
Green-Schools is both a programme and an award scheme. The award is given to schools that successfully complete the Seven Steps of the programme.

The seven steps of the Green-Schools programme are:

Green-Schools committee:
This directs the school's involvement in the project. Ideally, the committee includes pupils, teachers, non-teaching staff, management and parents.
Environmental Review:
A process of examining the schools environmental impacts in order to identify targets for action and improvement.
Action Plan:
This gives specific and achievable targets with proposed completion dates that will show real success.
Monitoring and Evaluation:
This will ensure that progress towards targets is checked, amendments made when necessary and success celebrated.
Curriculum Work:
Curriculum materials are provided that give ideas on how to integrate environmental issues into lessons.
Informing and Involving:
A publicity programme keeps the school and wider community involved and informed through displays, assemblies and press coverage. A Day of Action involves the whole school and wider community in meeting your targets.
Green Code:
This is a statement of the schools commitment to environmental good habits.

The Green-Schools programme can help schools to: