St.Louis Infant School

The green school work for December 2010 came to a happy conclusion on 21/12/10 with the prize giving for the ‘ waste in its proper place competition’. Room 4 , Mrs.Powers class were the final winners and they collected their prize of a ’sweet hamper’ . The sweets were carefully chosen for minimal packaging with mostly recyclable plastic and cardboard. Mrs Mc Tiernan praised room 4 for their correct sorting of their waste and also the clear labelling of their 4 bins in the classroom. There were also three runner up prizes for rooms 2 5 and 9. The competition was met with great enthusiasm on the part of the children. The green school committee would like to give them all a big’ Thank you’ and’ well done’ to all the children in room 4 and everyone who put in such a great effort. It is hoped to continue with a similar competition in January 2011. So if you didn’t win this time there will be lots of more opportunities for more prizes.
Over all 2010 was a good year for the green school programme in St. Louis Infant school. We successfully submitted our green school application for 1/12/10 and we look forward our assessment in the new year. We hope everyone had a happy safe and ‘green’ Christmas.
From all on the green school committee

Action Days in St Louis Infant School took place on Thursday 29/4/10 and on Friday 30/4/10.
Thursday 29/4/10 began with a very worthwhile Litter pick, with the litterpicks being on loan from Monaghan Co. Council. Mrs Greenan and her band of little helpers did a great morning's work, collecting lots of nasty litter, most of which was blown in across the fence into the school grounds.
The children who helped were Nathan, Aaron, Michael, Natalia, Aidan, Oscar, Dawid, Alexandra, Nathan, Evelina, Ryan, Olga, Diarmuid, Alicia, Dean and Christopher. Indoors, and in conjunction with National Spring Clean, the cleaning continued with all the eager children in their green tee shirts busy at work. In the hope of having the cleanest classroom the children in every room vied with each other to "Spot the Litter" and put it in the waste or recycle bin as appropriate.

The children enjoyed an educational and enjoyable compost making demonstration by Nial O'Connor, Environmental Officer, Monaghan Co. Council in their ongoing efforts to reduce their Carbon Footprint and achieve their first Green flag as part of the 7 step Green-schools Programme. This 'Master Compositor' workshop taught the children how to look after and understand how composting works. Composting is a great way for schools and households to reduce amounts of waste going to landfill and at the same time, produce quality compost for use in the garden.

Other activities included
- Poster making (Miss McMeel's and Miss Burns' class)
- Rhyme Making (Mrs Power's Miss Mc Reynolds' and Miss Casey's class)
- Updating of green code (Miss Peoples' Class)
- Waste in it's Proper place Competition

We also undertook a mini review as part of our ongoing monitoring and evaluation of waste reduction.The committee members Sam, Megan, Aaron, Aoife, Liam, Aimee, Tiarnan and Kacper were busy helping Nial with the weighing, fetching and carrying while Sophie was doing the recording.The culmination of Thursday's effort was in the judgement of the 'Spot the Litter' competition on Friday morning. The standard was so high that it was decided that the only fair thing to do was to put all the names in a hat and draw the winner. Room 2, Mrs Connolly's class of Junior Infants were the lucky winners and they were presented with a beautiful recycling truck for their Play Corner.
We had a visit from Magician Marvin with his special 'Recycle Magic' show. This was a magical ending to all the hard work and a real treat for the children. There was Magic, Fun, Games, Stories, Role play, Rhymes, Rap and even a'giota beag as ghaeilge'. All in all a valuable lesson in the 3R's-Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.