GREEN SCHOOLS - TRAVEL - CYCLING TO SCHOOL...

Safe Cycle Lessons
On Wednesday 29th Sept to Friday 1st Oct 2010 Mieke from An Taisce visited our school to give free cycle safety lessons to all pupils and parents who wished to take part. It was a great success, all the pupils and parents enjoyed the day very much and it is encouraging to see an increase in the number of pupils who are cycling to school already.

Mieke taught us the proper way to cycle our bikes on the road, and all the ways to keep safe when cycling. One of the main reasons Mieke gave the parents lessons was to encourage them to allow their children cycle to school by showing them safe cycling routes.

We would like to thank all the pupils and parents for taking part.

Launch of COW Day 
On Wednesday the 3rd November 2010, we launched the beginning of our C.O.W (cycle on Wednesday) Days. It was a great success, some of the pupils cycled and the rest of them walked from the Town Square back to the school. As we were coming back to our school we sang our cycle chant:

Cycle chant 
Cycle, cycle, all the way,
It’s good to cycle everyday. 
Cycle to school, 
Then cycle home, 
and see how fit you become.

We also held a “Bling Your Bike” competition. We picked a winner from every class, each winner got a prize. We also picked an overall winner. The standards were very high, but there was one that stood out from the rest. Adam from Fourth Class was the overall winner.

We would also like to thank all of the teachers, parents and pupils for taking part. We have also published the safe cycling routes to school which can be seen by clicking the links below.

Safe Cycling Routes 
- Killane to School 
- Cokery Cross to School 
- O'Connell Square to School

Our Green Schools Assessment 
On Thursday the 20th January 2011 Fiona Dunne from Offaly County Council came to assess us for our fourth Green Schools flag. She came around to all of our classes and she was impressed with our projects and all the hard work we put in.

We put travel facts on each of our classroom doors and we also put up charts to show how many boys walked or cycled to school each week. She was very impressed with the numbers. 

Hover over the smaller pictures below to see them larger  (may take a moment to load all of the photos)

On Friday the 27th May 2011 Scoil Muire Banríon held a flag raising ceremony to raise our fourth green flag. The boys of Scoil Muire Banríon worked really hard to achieve the fourth flag as part of the Green School Travel Programme.

On the day our flag was raised by our neighbour on Gilroy Avenue, Kathleen Kelly and local councillor Noel Bourke. There was a great celebratory atmosphere on the day. Music was provided by local band Frantic Jack and special guests on the day included the Hurling team from St. Patrick’s De La Salle, Kilkenny.