King’s Hospital School raises sixth Green Flag

THE King’s Hospital School in Palmerstown celebrated its sixth Green Flag award in a flag-raising ceremony, with special guests MEP Frances Fitzgerald and Mayor of South Dublin County Council, Cllr Vicki Casserly.

The school has also been named Global Citizenship School of the year for the Dublin region, and renewed its five previous flags, as part of An Taisce’s Green Schools programme awards.

During an engaging discussion with the European Studies class, MEP Fitzgerald praised the students and their teachers “for having a global perspective and being so motivated to influence the changes needed for a sustainable future, through their many initiatives”. 

To achieve the Green Flag, which was based on the theme of Global Citizenship – Litter and Waste, the school had to show the efforts it made to raise awareness on looking after the environment, promote and facilitate ‘active citizenship’ and make an improvement in the litter and waste management in the school. 

Presenting the flag to students, Mayor Casserly told students: “They may seem like small changes that you are making in your lives but collectively they are making a huge difference to all our futures.”

The school’s environmental efforts to reach the Green Schools targets included hosting classroom talks and creating promotional material to raise awareness, replacing plastic bottles with recyclable cans, and composting of all kitchen waste and the introduction of a communal bin area and recycling bins.

The school’s Environmental Committee and Student Council, together with science teacher, Ciaran O’Connor, and modern language and European studies teacher, Viki Malcolm, worked tirelessly to effect the changes, and ultimately to achieve their Green Flag goal. 

Mr O’Connor said: “Achieving our sixth Green Flag is a culmination of two years of hard work by a dedicated group of young people who give their time voluntarily to raise awareness of environmental issues and to promote behaviour change amongst their peers.”