Welcome
Welcome to Scoil Bhríde N.S. website. Scoil, Bhríde was blessed by Most Rev. Dr. Laurence Forristal in 1989, and opened by the then Minister for Education, Mrs. Mary O Rourke TD. The school replaced a pre-fab, which in 1967 had replaced the original school building of 1829. In 1998 Scoil Bhríde was awarded Green School status because of our work for the environment. We have continued this work and are working towards our eight green flag Citizenship and Energy. We are a rural school with four Mainstream Teachers, a Special Class Teacher for ASD, a shared Learning Support Teacher a part time Resource Teacher and two SNAs. We have 95 children on roll currently.
Mission Statement
Scoil Bhride, Lisdowney is a Catholic primary school for the education of children primarily from the Lisdowney area of the parish. The school is committed to the aims and principles of the revised (1999) primary school curriculum. It celebrates the uniqueness of each child as expressed in each child's personality, intelligence and potential for development. The school seeks to nurture the child in all dimensions of his or her life - spiritual, moral, cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, social and physical.
Our curriculum aims to enable each child:
- To live a full life as a child to realise his or her potential as a unique individual.
- To develop the holistic child: a social being, through living and co-operating with others and so contribute to the good of society.
- To prepare for future education and lifelong learning.
Scoil Bhride seeks to cherish and challenge children in a safe, secure and attractive learning environment. We aim to provide quality learning experiences that are engaging, enriching and enjoyable through a broad, balanced and relevant curriculum.
The school sees itself as an integral part of the parish and in partnership with parents and the church seeks to nurture the Catholic faith through religious education, preparation for the Sacraments and through the ethos of the school. This ethos is best exemplified through the qualify of all relationships in the school which are based on respect and dignity for each person - child, parent, teacher, principal, secretary, caretaker and visitor to the school.
Scoil Bhride seeks to be a warm and welcoming place, respectful and accommodating of diversity in race, culture, religion, gender and ability, We strive to provide an inclusive environment responsive to the needs of all. We aim to promote equity in all areas and to provide extra support for any child with a learning disability, difficulty or problem.
We value most highly our relationship with parents and the local community and seed to continue to work in partnership with parents to ensure the best interest of each child is provided for.
The school is a learning community. We promote and value lifelong learning for all, including staff. We urge you to work in partnership with us reinforcing for children the shared values of home and school.
Ni neart go cur le
Our Seven Green Flags
1.Litter and Waste
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
We recycle cans, paper, batteries, clothes, kitchen waste.
We make compost for our organically tended garden.
We use recycled paper and when photocopying, use both sides of the paper.
Everyone brings healthy lunches in a lunch box and if there is any wrapping used it is taken back home.
We always participate in the annual, National Spring Clean, cleaning along the roads leading into the village, the communities' sports field and around the school itself.
2.Energy
We conserve energy in the school. Each room has a monitor who is responsible for making sure lights, electrical appliances and taps etc are turned off when not in use and make sure doors and windows are closed in cold weather. The monitors hold their position for a week and then a new child from the room takes over. This means all children get a chance to be responsible. We studied alternative energy sources. We monitored our energy consumption. We now have better insulation in the school attic and new double glazed windows which has made a huge difference to our energy consumption. We participated in the Green Homes Scheme so that parents could become involved.
3.Water
We looked at where our water comes from: the need for good clean water in order to survive; the problems of drought throughout the world; water as a source of energy; rainwater harvesting; the consequences of water pollution; and the use of less harmful cleaning products. One of our mottos is: Down the drain and back again. We promoted Bio-degradable cleaning products.
4.Transport and Travel
We spend quite a long time investigating alternative forms of transport; alternative fuels; looking at the problems of Oil and CO2, we undertook a school bus survey.
We revisited the same area again with the help of Ciara Hanrahan, Green Schools Travel Advisory, who gave power-point presentations on CO2 Greenhouse effect etc.
We always observe Car Free Day.
We undertook Cycle Training.
We have completed two Travel Surveys compiled by the Department of Transport, and have devised on of our own, which was completed by parents and guardians.
We have always promoted car pooling and have had a Free Flow System for parents bringing and collecting children by motor vehicles, in place for a couple of years now. We observed National WOW Day, when most parents, teachers and children either cycled or joined the walking bus.
We have a Green School Committee. Pupils are elected and usually remain on the committee until the end of the school year. There is usually one parent representative, Michael Brophy, our invaluable Caretaker and one teacher representative and a representative from each class group.
5.Travel
We were assessed by Kilkenny County Council for our fifth Green Flag in October 2009 and we were delighted to receive the news that we were successful again this time. This success was due to the hard work of all the children in the school and especially the Green school committee and classroom monitors. Well done to Ms Venables, the Green Schools co-ordinator. Michael the caretaker and Bronyn the parents representative on the committee who all contributed greatly to all green activities!
We were then selected to take part in the theme "Biodiversity". Rachel Boyle visited the school to tell us more about the project and gave us ideas on approaches to take when doing the project. We looked forward to the challenge of the new project.
We were one of seventeen schools in Ireland piloting this biodiversity theme. We fed and studied the birds that live in and around our school grounds. We had great fun trying to identify them all.
6. Biodiversity
This was our 6th Green Flag Theme. We were one of 17 schools, within Southern Ireland to pilot this new topic for An Taisce.
We have always been very aware of habitats and have created quite a few different environments around the school over the years.
The School Garden: each class room has their own plot. We grow fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers. We grow plants to attract beneficial insects, bees and butterflies. This enables us to study mini beasts and their interrelationship with the plants they love to visit. We save a lot of our own seeds.
Our Little Wood: Every family in the school has their own tree.
Willow beds and willow dome: we are growing our own willows and are able to make crafts with the willow canes when we harvest them. Our willow dome is a lovely place to play in. We use our willow cuttings to weave for visual arts and the children also use the cuttings to develop willow structures at home.
Pond and little marsh: we have a small fish pond and a little "marsh". Both of these small habitats help us in our wild life studies. We have goldfish in the pond and sometimes even frogspawn. Four our "Biodiversity" theme we study native plants and trees. We are learning about our wildlife - our birds, mammals, and mini beasts. We learned how to tell the quality of the water in the river or stream by finding out what creatures inhabit the river bed. We were delighted to be given our 6th Green flag in 2011.
7.Global Citizenship, litter and Waste
We conducted global awareness and nationality surveys. We graphed these results during maths and ICT classes. We made advent wreaths from recyclable materials which were blessed by Fr. O'Farrell and given to the parishioners. We took part in the Hope Foundation shoe box appeal. We invited the active retired members of the community into our Christmas concert. We supported our local St. Vincent de Paul by raising funds carol singing. We conducted a litter and waste audit to identify any further areas needing improvement. We made St. Brigid's crosses and
distributed them locally. We participated in the Trocaire Lenten campaign and raised much needed funds for charities abroad. We had a day of action where the children from Senior classes presented projects on countries from five continents. We researched litter and waste management globally and identified the top 10 best green destinations and the worst. We examined the topic of ocean waste. We looked at how Ireland rates and discovered that most of our waste is exported. We visited our local recycling centre and were given a guided tour by Bernadette Moloney Kilkenny County Council Environment officer. The infants our green army were busy monitoring leaking taps, lights and switches, rubbish and heat conservation. We removed all paper towels from school and reverted back to using cloth towels. We took part in a Day of action on Fair Trade. We increased awareness of the fair-trade products available and encouraged parents to be more mindful to choose these products where possible. We made blackberry and apple jam using our own produce from the garden and fair-trade sugar. Profits made were given to charity. We held a competition to design a new green school citizenship themed badge. We held a fair-trade fortnight and registered as a fair-trade school. The children created a new green code to incorporate citizenship and all the green themes. We took part in the National Spring clean and all classes went out and picked up rubbish from a one km radius. Unfortunately, we collected 10 bags. We sorted these accordingly and recycled what we could. We renamed each classroom after the trees in the garden. We held clothing collections. The Infants took part in a World Cup project.
8.Global Citizenship and Energy
9. Global Citizenship and the Marine Environment
We are now working on our 10th Green Flag.
10. Global Citizenship and Travel