Gardening & Environmental Care

Well done to all the pupils whom have helped to keep our school grounds looking great this year.

From planting broadbeans, peas, potatoes, radishes, spinach, lettuce and wildflowers to litter-picking to watering and weeding, the crew of gardeners have done the school proud. Their help was instrumental in installing our beautiful woodland area. We hope that this will grow to become a key feature of our school grounds and look forward to watching the trees and shrubs we’ve planted growing and thriving. Aoife Munn if Meath County Council visited on Thursday, May 28 th , to have a look at our progress and advise us about our ongoing efforts. The representatives who showed Aoife around did a marvellous job. We await Aoife’s formal feedback. But she seemed impressed with how we’ve used the space we have.  There is some more to do! The annual sunflower challenge is underway. We welcome donations of seeds, bulbs, plant feed and equipment. We also encourage you to make the most of your own space at home to grow your own, plant for pollinators or just enjoy nature! Again, email any photographs you might have of your efforts and we can post them here or on School Dojo Story.

Enjoy the outdoors this summer!

The School Gardening Team.

In May, we received the results of the Nature Heroes Awards. The school applied for

the Bronze Badger Award. This was the most basic level to aim for. However, we are

proud to announce that we achieved the Silver Stag Award, a level higher than

Bronze Badger! St Patrick's NS was one of just 16 schools all over Ireland to achieve

this level of Nature Heroes Award.

Some members of the team have begun giving Biodiversity Walks around the school

grounds. Ms Delahunt’s and Ms Ward’s/Condren's classes were guided around our

plants, log piles, bug hotels, bird and bat boxes, and young trees. More classes are

scheduled for a Walk in the coming weeks.

We have started working on building the foundations of what will be our school's

native woodland. This is where we planted saplings at the top corner of the top yard

pitch area last term. Ciarán de Buitléir kindly showed Ms Griffin's class the new

pocket forest in Grace Meadow, where approximately 200 trees and shrubs have

been planted! Ciarán generously advised us about the trees in our school grounds.

He advised us to lay cardboard and cover it with wood chip, to kill off the grass over

the summer. In the autumn, we will plant a base layer of shrubs and small trees.

Many, many thanks to Élite Garden Centre for donating wood chip for this. Enormous

thanks, as always, to the indomitable Mr Russell, without whom this entire project

would not be happening.

Cian, Isobel, Emma and Anna were staking up pea plants that are growing taller by the day! We have also been harvesting a bit, with onions and garlic ready to lift. We cooked and froze them, with the intention of combining them with ripe tomatoes in August and some basil. We'll hopefully eat our sauce with pasta when we return to school! 

The 2025 Sunflower Challenge is underway. Please email Ms Griffin photographs of

your growing sunflower shoots, if you've chosen to take part. We would love as many

people as possible to give it a try. Seeds and pots are still available and we will keep

going until we run out!

Well done to everyone who’s been helping out and please keep looking after all the

plants and animals - especially the weeds and the tiny creatures - in your lives.

Thank you for reading,

The Nature Heroes Team.

Litter-picking, weeding, watering and other basic maintenance are ongoing, with volunteers

giving up their breaktimes to contribute to the upkeep of the school grounds.

We have a fantastic new display in the school lobby, promoting awareness of ALL the species

of plants and animals that can be found around Ireland’s countryside. Well done to the pupils

of Ms Griffin’s 5 th class, who created this informative display. The birds around our school

are thoroughly enjoying the feeders we top up each day and we are becoming more familiar

with common garden birds like starlings and sparrows.

The onions and garlic we planted in November are growing nicely and we have added onions

begun in pots by Ms Friery’s 5 th class. We’ve spruced up our bed of crocuses and lots of tubs

of tulips for springtime, and begun planting lots of pollinator-friendly flowering plants, like

primroses, chamomile and marigolds, and vegetables. We will care for these into the summer

months and we hope they can provide nourishment for lots of bees, wasps and butterflies.

These are known as pollinators and without them, we would have no food!

Ms McKeon, Ms Friery and Ms Griffin’s classes have all planted potatoes. We hope to enjoy

these just before the summer holidays! Hyacinths, daffodils and heathers are blooming,

adding colour to the grounds.

Friday, March 21 st was an important day for the Nature Heroes team. Thanks to Fingal

County Council, we collected seven willow saplings to mark National Tree Week. We also

received three downy birch saplings. All hands were on deck at breaktime on Friday, digging

holes and preparing fertiliser, stakes and a temporary fence, to create our new mini woodland

area. Ms Duff, Mr Russell and the 5 th and 6 th classes took the lead, with some pupils really

showing their muscle! We are now ensuring each sapling has its own individual fence, to

protect it at this vulnerable stage and we are keeping them well-watered. We hope that this

area will grow into a beautiful little woodland where we can go to enjoy nature for years to

come.

Exciting times here in St Patrick's NS - We have now a Nature Heroes team! Anna, Ciarán, Cian, Max, Conor, Conor, Amy, Emma, Daithí, Katie, Martha, Kate, Rose, Karina, Isabel, Alannah and Alex, gave of their time during late January and early February, to create new habitats for little critters who might like to make our school grounds their home. Specialthanks to Aidan, of Mrs O' Sullivan's junior infants, who brought in a bag of wood to contribute to our new log piles.

Down on the junior yard in February, our wonderful caretaker, Mr Russell, and the team decided where to locate our new bat box. We have also relocated an existing bird box and added one made by Eoghan’s grandad, Patrick. Enormous thanks to Ciarán de Buitléir for donating the bat box to the school. We will be tapping into some of Ciarán’s extensive expertise in the coming weeks, in our effort to increase biodiversity around the school. We hope to make and/or acquire another bat box or two.

After the midterm break, we will take several measures to enhance our native woodland, at the front of the school. We will label some of the trees, create some eco-friendly windchimes, care for the plants we already have growing in pots and hopefully plant some more. We want to make this an outdoor classroom every class can enjoy. Thank you so much to the Parents Association for their contribution.

There is a lot more to do in our work to improve biodiversity around the grounds of St Patrick' s NS, including the creation of bird care areas and wildflowers, nettles, ivy and pollinators. Donations are always welcome. We would love any amount of timber of any size or large pots (chipped or cracked are fine - we can work with that!).

Here' s to creating a more diverse school, in more ways than one!