Pobalscoil Iosolde is a large Secondary School based in Palmerstown, Dublin 20. It is comprised of 800 students and 80 members of staff. They were awarded their first Green Flag for Litter & Waste in 2024.  

Step 1: Green-Schools Committee 

The Green-Schools committee includes the principal, four teachers and representative from 1st, 3rd and 4th year. The committee meet monthly for 30 minutes. During their meetings they address their current projects and various plans to address littering across school grounds.  

Step 2: Environmental Review 

The Green Schools Committee carried out all essential and recommended actions outlined in the Green-Schools Handbook. Litter blackspots were identified and mapped to ensure these areas could be monitored by the committee. Through carrying out surveys across the school, they discovered that 90% of their 17 subject departments believed the school had a problem with litter. Poor recycling habits existed in the school as the committee discovered they had a major problem with bin contamination. Excess paper waste through over printing and photocopying was also highlighted as a big concern. Lunch waste was also a concern, as food was going straight to landfill with zero composting in place. 

Step 3: Action Plan 

The school set out an ambitious action plan to be achieved over the two years of working on Litter & Waste. Successful actions included: 

• Getting rid of the big metal skip which stood behind their school and instead ordered more medium sized wheelie recycling bins for dry recycling. They decreased the amount of general waste bins to just 2 to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill 

• Rasing money for new recycling supplies through school raffles  

• Present PowerPoint to all teaching staff outlining best practice for recycling 

• Present same presentation to the Board of Management  

• Made and planted a raised bed for flowers and vegetables using reused materials. Again, using recycled materials, they made bird houses and installed a water butt 

• Reducing and monitoring the amount of paper wasted by staff during the year through photocopying and printing. 

• Output a Green Schools newsletter full on information and tips for all students to get informed.  

• Carried out extensive surveys addressing current school issues such as littering, school lunch waste, reusable water bottles, printing  

• The results of the survey identified what the main types of waste were for each Subject Department 

• More bins were introduced across the campus of the school, these are monitored and emptied regularly.  

• Informative posters scattered across the school   

Step 4: Monitoring and Evaluation 

Students conducted random spot checks of classroom recycling bins to monitor good recycling practice and noted any instances of bin contamination. During regular litter patrols of the school and school grounds, students recorded any areas of heavy litter, unusual activity, or new litter blackspots. Teacher members of the Green Schools committee started to record the number of pages being used by each photocopier in the school with a view to tackling the over printing and photocopying by staff. A new litter audit was carried out last November – a year since the school’s first full litter and waste audit. The committee plan to conduct another audit next November to access progress.  

Step 5: Curriculum Links 

Some examples of the school’s curriculum links include: 

Business Studies 

• 1st/2nd/3rd Year: Ch.1 making the most of your resources. CH.13 being a responsible consumer. Ch.40 Sustainable Development  

• 5th & 6th Year: Ch.1 Stakeholders and Conflict of Interest – competitive relationships. Ch 22 Community Development Ch 23 Social Responsibility (CSR) 

Accounting: 

• 5th & 6th Year: Efficiency – reducing waste and the financial benefits to households and business enterprises. 

English: 

• 1st to 6th Year: Poem -The Sea. Litter in school Story -Caring for our school environment. Letter Writing – to Thorntons Recycling Company asking if they can send someone in to speak with us and tell us about how a big recycling plant works 

Mathematics: 

• Green school and math’s, volume of waste a bin can contain, getting the volume of a cylinder or a cuboid. Which is more Cross Curricular 

CSPE 

• 1st to 3rd Year: One of the key Concepts of CSPE is Stewardship – Pupils should be aware that as individuals born on the planet every person becomes a temporary owner or steward entrusted and empowered with its care and maintenance e.g. with constructive management of its finite resources, appreciation of the cultural diversity of its peoples, etc. This stewardship will be passed on to future generations and includes complex decision-making on complex issues. 

Geography 

• 1st. 2nd, 3rd, 5th & 6th Year: Renewable/ Non-renewable energy. Sustainability. Water pollution in our seas and rivers. Water Conservation 

PE 

• All year groups: Litter picking walks in the school and the local community – physical activity combined with helping the environment  

Woodwork: 

• TY: Reconstructing old furniture pieces into useful products like garden planters, bird houses, raised flower beds 

6.   Informing and Involving 

The school informed and involved the whole school and local community in the following ways; 

• Green Schools Ezine produced by the Trinity Access Programme students 

• The green schools notice board located along the main corridor 

• Frequent intercom announcements to remind staff to ask students to empty the recycling bins and to remind everybody to use the bins in the correct manner 

• School website – photos and stores will be posted to highlight our ongoing efforts at tackling waste and litter  

• Staff meetings – essential information is delivered to tutors and year heads which in turn is communicated to their students  

• Year group assemblies – Year Heads and Tutors remind students about the importance of recycling and reducing waste  

Step 7:  Green Code 

Students were invited to produce a song or poem that encapsulated the spirit of Green Schools combined with the mission of the committee! 

We are Pobalscoil Iosolde and we are proud 

We strive to make our school stand out. 

We aim to keep our school Clean and Green 

Coz Litter and Waste is our theme. 

We will keep on working towards our goal 

And hoist up a green flag upon that pole. 

This is just the start you see, 

Because next we aim to help the bees. 

Testimonial: 

“The students and staff of the school have worked extremely hard, and I think we have come a very long way from where we started. It has been very satisfying to see the removal of the big skip from the back of the school wherein everything was just dumped prior to Green Schools. The school is much cleaner, and this makes it a much nicer environment to work and learn in. The student body of the Green Schools committee have benefited by developing their own social skills, organisation skills, planning skills and they have seen how in working together they can achieve remarkable things!”