ENV 5

Dear Parent,

We were delighted to welcome Birthe Tonseith and Aoileen Garavagio from RTE into our school on Monday. They are producer and presenter of a new series of programmes about the environment that will be broadcast in September - RTE contacted us through Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown because of our successful environmental campaign. A number of sequences were filmed that involved the children showing how to ‘Reduce, Reuse and Recycle’. It was an interesting experience for all of us and I think the children are now looking forward to their moment of fame! Birthe and Aoileen enjoyed their visit and were most impressed with the school building and the conduct of the children. The programme is called ‘Bin Bling’ and will form part of ‘The Den’.

On a different note, it appears that schools are not so welcome at Bring Centres in our area. A parent of Sixth Class was turned away from Dun Laoghaire Bring Centre because it seems that schools and businesses – for the purposes of recycling – are categorised similarly. It is absolutely absurd that this should have happened, but after quite a few enquiries, it appears that this is policy. So, to continue our recycling programme in the school, parents are taking our paper/plastics/card to be recycled a little at a time – though we never usually have that much in a week. I believe that schools will be getting green bins by the end of the year and this should help alleviate the problem. If you happen to get talking to campaigners in the forthcoming election, maybe you could mention our dilemma.

Third Class children have been looking at the pathway outside the school entrance and are appalled by its untidy, unkempt – indeed filthy – appearance. There is everything from plastic/glass bottles, cans, cigarette butts to a baby’s nappy. We need to plan a ‘Day of Action’ to tidy up this mess as it undoubtedly detracts from the overall appearance of the school. We’ll keep you in touch with our plans in this regard.

We were thrilled that Gráinne Dempsey and Jean Feighery from An Taisce were in a position to attend our concert and formally present us with our Green Flag earlier this month. They are particularly busy people, having just come from a meeting and rushing off to another after leaving us.

Thank you for your continuing support.

Yours sincerely,

James Malseed