Category Archives: Development Education

Fairtrade Fortnight

March 19, 2023Development Education, Home Economics, NewsEamon

As part of our work in Global Citizenship, this year for Fairtrade Fortnight students learned more about the benefits of supporting fairtrade for the farmers and producers of some of our favourite food products like bananas, chocolate, tea and coffee. This year we looked more critically at the topic with a focus on how climate change is impacting how our food is being produced.

Ms Cooney and the Social Justice Club organised a fairtrade stand in the canteen area for students to sample a selection of fairtrade treats. Staff also enjoyed a Fairtrade Cuppa Morning. Students from Ms Moran, Mr Mullen and Ms Cooney’s CSPE, Geography and Home Economics classes looked at the topic further. Mr Mullen’s 1st and 3rd year Geography classes enjoyed some fairtrade hot chocolate.

On Tuesday 7th March we were delighted to welcome Aidan and Hannah from Fairtrade Ireland along with Special Guest Innocent Owomuhangi a fairtrade tea farmer from Uganda to the school. They spoke to students, staff and members of our community about the importance of supporting fairtrade. This was a brilliant opportunity for everyone to meet a farmers directly involved in fairtrade.

We invited a number of people in our community to the event and so we would like to say thank you to Patricia Holahan from Leitrim County Council, Michael representing Ballinamore Supervalu, Vincent and Cian representing Tesco Ballianmore and Kay Maguire and Ian from Ballianmore Tidy Towns who attended the event on Tuesday.

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TY FEAST Workshop

March 9, 2023Development Education, Green Schools, Home Economics, News, Transition YearEamon

TY’s recently enjoyed a workshop delivered by Devin from FEAST Ireland as part of their global citizenship education class. A fun and informative workshop where students learned about sustainable Irish produce, how the food system affects climate change, food miles, impact that war, famine and brexit has on food availability and the practice of zero waste food. They tasted Irish oysters, granola made from spent grains, kombucha, sourdough and banana skin chutney. The workshop also got students thinking more about the SDG around zero hunger which generated lots of discussion. The workshop was funded through the WorldWise Global Schools programme our school is involved in.

TY Gender Inequality Action Project

February 27, 2023Development Education, News, Transition YearEamon

As part of their YSI project, with the aid of Angela Horgan from YSI and Aife Kearns from Innovating Communities, the TYs used the Design Thinking approach to develop an action project around awareness of gender inequality. Over the past couple of months, students researched the issue and developed an approach to raise awareness.

This culminated in the group devising a poster campain in the school which outlined important facts and figures around the issue. To encourage students in the school to engage with the campaign, the TYs hosted a quiz last Friday for all junior students, with most of the questions being about information included in the posters.

To encourage engagement with the posters and quiz, the group had previously hosted a bake sale to fund desirable prizes including cinema tickets and easter eggs.

The event was a superb success, with students really enjoying the quiz and learning a lot in the process. No doubt our students will now be able to spread the word and help drive change around this important societal issue into the future.

Climate Action Week

December 1, 2022Development Education, Green Schools, NewsEamon

Our Climate Action Week kicked off this week with members of the Green School Committee overseeing our new waste disposal / waste segregation bins and great to see students refilling / reusing their water bottles.

We are asking all in our school community to check around your houses for old batteries to give to students to bring in and dispose of in any of the blue battery boxes around the school. WEEE Ireland will then be disposing of them safely.

If you have any unwanted clothing items we are also doing a clothing collection this week (see the flyer for times we are collecting from). All the clothing collected is going to a company called All Tex and money raised from this initiative we will be giving to charity.

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Planting Horse Chestnuts

October 28, 2022Development Education, Green Schools, NewsEamon

Mr Nolan’s 1st Year class planted horse chestnut seeds (conkers) and are hoping to have a sapling to bring hometo plant in a few years time.

European Day of Languages 2022

October 4, 2022Development EducationEamon

As part of the celebrations for European Day of Languages GCE Committee members organised a table at lunch with some sweet treats from across Europe for students to sample. Thank you to Teodora who made Romanian Chec and Aitiana and Claudia who made Spanish Torryas.

‘Second Hand September’ Action

October 4, 2022Development Education, Green Schools, NewsEamon

Inspired by VOICE IRELAND’s initiative called ‘Second Hand September’ members of the Social Justice Committee decided to take action with all the unclaimed items in the lost and found room here in school. There was a wide range of class materials from brand new copies, folders and stationary that had been left around the school last year along with unclaimed clothing. The committee members set up a table displaying all the items during lunch and students who genuinely needed materials for class were able to avail of them. This helped reuse these items rather than contributing to more waste.

Green Schools Flag Raising

September 12, 2022Development Education, Green Schools, NewsEamon

We were delighted to raise our 7th Green Schools Flag here at BCS

Students, staff and members of our community gathered outside for our flag raising ceremony. We also celebrated our achievement on being the National Winners for the Global Citizenship Energy theme.

This was achieved as a result of the collective efforts made by everyone across our school community to engage in the various actions and initiatives.

Special thanks to Mr Mullen, Ms Colum, Ms Cooney & Ms Griffin who coordinate the programme.

Check out this weeks edition of Leitrim Observer / Leitrim Live for more on our flag raising ceremony & celebrations!

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Rediscovery Centre Workshop

May 30, 2022Development Education, Green Schools, NewsEamon

On Thursday 19th May the two first year Home Economics classes visited the Rediscovery Centre in Ballymun. The Rediscovery Centre is Ireland’s National Centre for the Circular Economy. The students participated in a sustainable living workshop. Students learned more about the UN Global Goals and how interconnected they all are, they explored ways to be more sustainable with resources in their daily lives.

Students examined the concept of upcycling and reusing materials and items and they upcycled an old t-shirt into a tote bag. Next year students will complete a textile project as part of their CBA (Classroom Based Assessment) in Home Economics and so the trip was a great source of inspiration for this. They can also made connections on how the Global Goals relate to other subjects that they are studying in school.

Green Schools National Winners

May 20, 2022Development Education, Green Schools, NewsEamon

Best Secondary School in Ireland Award for Ballinamore CS in National Green Schools Ceremony, May 2022

On the 19th May, 2022 Ballinamore CS were once again crowned as Best Secondary School in Ireland for their successful completion of their Green School programme, Global Citizenship and Energy.

Ballinamore CS had previously been crowned Best Secondary School in Ireland in 2019 for their Global Citizenship and Litter and Waste programme.

To get to the National finals Ballinamore CS had to implement their programme for a minimum of 2 years on the Global Citizenship and Energy theme. Ballinamore CS were selected as Regional winners for the North and West Region and were then short listed for the National finals along with Secondary school winners from Dublin, East and Midlands, Leinster and the South of Ireland

The ceremony was held in the Radisson Blu hotel in Athlone, where Mr Mullen and 5 representatives from the Green School team in Ballinamore CS were present. The Green Schools programme was furst implemented in 2006 in what was then Ballinamore PPS. We received our 1st Green flag in 2007 and now in 2022 we have achieved our 7th. Each flag deals with a new aspect of the Green School’s programme.

Some of the many initiatives carried out in the school included;

Waste battery collection

A Clothes collection fundraiser for Guide Dogs

Fair Trade Week

Climate Justice Week

Climate Action Protest

Junk Couture

Digital Christmas Card

Setting up a Social Justice Club

Global Citizenship Passport

Planted trees and Flowers

Grew vegetables for Home Economics

Planted Cross-Pollinater plants

Purchased Outside Seating from Recycled Materials

April Spring Clean each year

Poster Competitions

Filtered Water Dispenser installed ( To reduce Plastic Bottle usage )

These are also a number of features in our school which helps reduce our Energy Consumption.

We use Grey Water for our washing and toilets. We have sensor lights and touch taps in all our toilets. We have Solar panels on the roof and we get our heating from Natural gas.

We would sincerely like to thank all pupils, parents, teachers, school management and BAM FM staff on a truely remarkable effort and achievement.

Particular thanks needs to go to the Green School Committee across the whole school and our 3 co-ordinators, Mr Mullen, Ms Cooney and Ms Colum.

Also to all the classes who were involved in the programme over the 3 years including Mr Mullen’s 2B CSPE class, Ms Cooney’s Home Ec classes and Ms Colum’s Agricultural Science classes. We would also like to thank Mr Kane and the Students Council and Ms Cooney for coordinating the Social Justice Club.

Our school plans to have a flag raising ceremony in September 2022 when we will comnence on our next Green School theme, Global Citizenship and Water.

We hope that involvement in this programme helps to forge a life long commitment to protecting the environment and to help combat Climate Change.

Well done to all on a great achievement