Welcome to our Eco-Schools page!

⚽️ Down GAA Coaching Schools Programme 🥅

Our Gaelic sessions led by Liam Hardy from Down GAA continued today and there has been fantastic development in the pupils' core skills since Liam  began working with them.

Children in Primary 5, 6 & 7 are thoroughly enjoying these coaching sessions

🧱YMCA Building Resilience Programme 💪

Today Primary 7 children completed their 6-week Building Up: Resilience programme delivered by Jenny from Lisburn YMCA as part of their transition preparations from St Mary’s to Post Primary Education.

The programme uses games and discussions to introduce eight areas of skill which are described as the eight building blocks to resilience. They include believing in our abilities, recognising our feelings, being able to understand other peoples’ feelings, giving ourselves time to think when things happen, identifying the cause of problems, understanding how to stay optimistic, setting achievable goals and asking for help when it is needed.

The programme is designed to support the development of emotional wellbeing and confidence in young people. Pupils who take part in the programme develop strategies and resilient processes to increase their knowledge and ability to cope with change.

The programme itself has been a fantastic success in helping equip our children with the increased confidence, knowledge and skills to develop resilience and how to cope when they are faced with difficult situations.

Many thanks to Jenny and the team from Lisburn YMCA for their delivery of the programme over the last 6 weeks.

😁 Children’s Mental Health Week 2025 🧠

This week marked Children’s Mental Health Week 2025 in school, a mental health awareness week that empowers, equips and gives a voice to all children.

Classes participated and marked this very important week in our school calendar with a variety of activities from work with the YMCA to class activities around the issue of how to look after our own mental health.

🚮 Eco Council - Litter Less Campaign 🚯

This morning our School Eco Councillors carried out their first litter pick of the year as part of their participation in the Eco Schools NI 'Litter Less Campaign'. 

The campaign focuses on empowering young people to find solutions to litter and waste issues and over the academic year the councillors have to carry out six litter picks and record, monitor and report on the amount of litter and waste collected during the pick. 

Today, our Eco Councillors completed a litter pick around the school grounds and also along the main Strangford Road. They did a fantastic job in ensuring that our school and the local community is a cleaner and safer place.

🎄Daily Mile - Santa Run 🎅🏻

Today we participated in ‘The Daily Mile SANTA RUN’.

The Daily Mile supports children and young people to feel fitter, healthier and happier.

The children had great fun dressing in their Christmas jumpers & Santa hats and what a great way to get into Christmas Spirit with some exercise! 🎅🏻 💫

♻️ First Eco-Council Meeting ♻️

We were delighted to welcome Ben Ryan, Eco-Schools Field Officer for Newry, Mourne & Down District Council attend St Mary's this week to chair our first School Eco-Council meeting of the year.

Ben met the Eco committee, listened closely to their ideas and helped them plan for the year ahead. 

🌎📝 Pupil Voice 2024 - 2025 📝🌎

Congratulations to the children who were today elected as Student Council Representatives and Eco-Council Representatives for 2024 -2025.

The group received their badges today at our special whole school assembly and are eager to get started in their new roles. 

Well done to everyone who put themselves forward for both positions and we appreciate your commitment to making St. Mary’s the best school for all our pupils. 

🧸🧸🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️Sponsored Walk & Teddy Bears Picnic🏃‍♂️🏃‍♀️🧸🧸

Fri 14 Jun 2024

Our annual Teddy Bears' Picnic at Bishopscourt Race Circuit today was a huge success with everyone having a fantastic day out. 

The weather conditions were ideal and the children were amazing, walking great distances around the track, with some completing two full laps of the course. 

We would like to thank everyone for their generosity and support for the event and a final total will be announced next week when all sponsorship money has been collected. 

🪴 Eco-Council Plant & Flower Sale 🌺

Wed 26 Jun 2024

Our Eco-Council Councillors have recently been selling a variety of plants and flowers outside the school at collection times. These were grown and very generously donated to the school by garden enthusiast Patrick McMullan, father of Ollie in P6 and Aairyn in Primary 1.

The children managed to raise an absolutely magnificent total of £240 from the sale of Hydrangeas, Busy Lizzie plants and Tomato plants amongst others.

This was a truly fantastic amount with all monies raised going towards school funds.

Thank you to Patrick for the very kind and generous donation.

🌍 Earth Day Poster Competition 🌊

Fri 03 May 2024

Congratulations to our prize winners in the Earth Day poster competition organised by our School Eco Councillors.

🚮 Big Spring Clean 🍃

Thu 18 Apr 2024

This morning our School Eco Councillors participated in the Live Here Love Here ‘Big Spring Clean’ campaign.

The campaign is focused on improving the local environment and building a sense of civic pride in our local communities through Litter Picks.

Our Eco Councillors completed a litter pick around the school grounds and also along the main Strangford Road. They did a fantastic job in ensuring that our school and the local community is a cleaner and safer place.

🌍 Earth Day 🌊

Mon 22 Apr 2024

Today we celebrated Earth Day 2024 in school.

Earth Day is a day of awareness, when we pay special attention to our natural environment. The children looked at the impact we are having on the Earth and what we can do to be less wasteful and defend our planet from activity that damages the environment.

The children spent time investigating the positive actions we can all take like litter picking, recycling and growing trees which will help to reset the balance with nature and our school Eco-Councillors organised an Earth Day poster competition with prizes for the best designs.

🙏 Trócaire Cheque Presentation 🤲

Tue 23 Apr 2024

This morning at our special whole school assembly, Mark from Trócaire visited St Mary’s to receive a cheque for £500.

These funds were raised over the Lenten period with our School Council planning, organising and leading the fundraising events.

Mark spoke to the children about the amazing work that Trócaire do in Africa, especially Malawi – the focus of this year’s Trócaire Lenten campaign.  

🦋🦋🐛🐛 Life cycle of a Butterfly 🐛🐛🦋🦋

Thu 25 Apr 2024

The past five weeks have been a buzz of excitement in Primary 1&2, with the children watching the life cycle of a Butterfly come full circle.

All the pupils in school have been watching with excitement as the butterflies came out of their chrysalis.

Today Primary 1&2 children let the butterflies loose in the playground to find their new forever homes. 

🌎 World Water Day 2024 💦

Fri 22 Mar 2024

Today was World Water Day 2024. World Water Day has been held every year since 1993 and this year’s theme is all about ‘Water for Peace’.

Pupils in all classes learned that we all need to unite, protect and conserve our most precious resource and that when we cooperate on water, a positive ripple effect is created.

As a Rights Respecting School, Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child states that ‘You have the right to the best healthcare possible, safe water to drink, nutritious food, a clean and safe environment, and information to help you stay well’ and this message was relayed throughout the school to all the children during our World Water Day activities.

🙏Trocaire Game Changers 💫

Thu 25 Jan 2024

We were delighted to welcome Deirbhile from Trocaire to St Mary's today as she delivered the first session of the Trocaire Game Changers programme to our Primary 7 children.

Game changers is a programme for young people who want to learn about issues affecting our world today. Game changers encourages young people to engage with global justice issues by creating either board, card or digital games.

Primary 7 will now begin the task of creating their own games based around current global issues for the Programme with the view to entering them into the Game Changers competition in March.

💡 Energy Saving Week 2023 📺

Fri 01 Dec 2023

In St Mary’s PS Dunsford we actively promote green values in our learning and teaching and this week we participated in Energy Saving week NI 2023.

Our school Eco-Council took the opportunity to explain during school assembly what energy saving is and why it is important to our planet.

The Eco-Council then set a target across the school that no electricity was to be used for 30 minutes each day this week as part of our energy saving measures for Energy Saving Week. This included no use of lights, iPads, computers and photocopiers.

By the end of the week our pupils gained a new understanding on what it takes to save energy and how their small changes can positively impact the planet.

Well done to our school Eco- Council team on leading the way during this very important week and showing us all that every little bit helps when it comes to saving energy. 

🎅🏻 Daily Mile - Santa Run 🏃‍♂️ 🏃‍♀️

Fri 01 Dec 2023

Today we participated in ‘The Daily Mile SANTA RUN’.

The Daily Mile supports children and young people to feel fitter, healthier and happier.

The children had great fun dressing in their Christmas jumpers & Santa hats and what a great way to get into Christmas Spirit with some exercise! 🎅🏻 💫

🌎📝 Pupil Voice 2023- 2024 📝🌎

Wed 25 Oct 2023

Congratulations to the children who were today elected as Student Council Representatives and Eco-Council Representatives for 2023 -2024.

Well done to everyone who put themselves forward for both roles and we appreciate your commitment to making St. Mary’s the best school for our all our pupils!

 Green Flag Award 

Our whole school community was extremely proud to today receive the renewal of our Eco Schools Green Flag Award for another two years.

Eco-Schools is a global programme engaging millions of children across 67 countries. It aims to empower children to drive change and improve their environmental awareness. The Green Flag Award is an internationally recognised symbol awarded to schools who can show that they are working hard to improve how ‘Green’ their organisation is and for excellence in environmental action and learning.

St Mary’s Eco-Council have worked tirelessly this year to earn another Green Flag status with assessors visiting St Mary’s to witness first hand the work that has been undertaken by our whole community.

Well done to all the Eco-councillors, the staff and parents who supported the work. A special thank-you to Miss O’Neill our Eco-Schools Coordinator, Mrs C Mullan, Mrs S McMullan, Mrs McLaughlin and Mrs Wills for their leadership on the programme.  

At a special awards ceremony held yesterday in the St Patrick’s Centre in Downpatrick, Mrs Howland, Iona, Anne and Sian our Eco-Councillors from Primary 6 & Primary 7 were delighted to receive our new Green Flag and associated plaques.

Eco-Council Plant & Flower Sale

Thu 29 Jun 2023

Our Eco-Council Councillors have recently been selling a variety of plants and flowers outside the school at collection times. These were grown and very generously donated to the school by garden enthusiast Patrick McMullan, father of Ollie in P5 and Aairyn in Primary 1.

The children managed to raise an absolutely magnificent total of £331 from the sale of Cayenne Pepper Plants, Bush Cucumber Plants and Aztek Micro Tomato Plants amongst others.

This was a truly fantastic amount with all monies raised going towards school funds.

Thank you to Patrick for the very kind and generous donation.

Well done to all the boys and girls. A special thanks to our Eco-Committee this year: Esmêe (P1), Harry (P2), Aoibh (P3), Ella (P4), Finlay (P4), Ciara (P5), Archie (P6), AJ (P6), Ellie-Rose (P7) and Clodagh (P7).

Dunsford ECO Day - Wear Green!

Wednesday 23rd June ♻️🍎🌺🐞

Fun indoor and outdoor eco activities! 
🐝🌿🌷🌎🍓⚽️🚴🏼‍♀️🏃🏻‍♂️🎨♻️

Dunsford ECO Day - Wear Green!

Wednesday 23rd June ♻️🍎🌺🐞

Fun indoor and outdoor eco activities! 
🐝🌿🌷🌎🍓⚽️🚴🏼‍♀️🏃🏻‍♂️🎨♻️

Week 1: Training and Assessment ✅

Week 2: Training and Assessment ✅

Week 3: Training and Assessment ✅

Congratulations to our newly elected Eco-School Committee Members. Esmêe (P1), Harry (P2), Finlay (P4), Ella (P4), Ciara (P5), AJ (P6), Archie (P6), Clodagh (P7) and Ellie-Rose (P7).

Well Done boys and girls! 

Eco-Schools Page 2019/2020

Sean (P6), Sophie (P6), Padraig (P7), Nicola (P7), Iona (P4), Matthew (P1) , Stella (P2), Issac (P1) and Aisling (P3).

Well Done to Charlie in P7 for representing our school at the Environmental Youth Speak Competition 2018 at the Saint Patrick’s Centre, Downpatrick.

Runners up in the Food Waste Challenge Competition!

The Eco-Committee are delighted to announce that we were runners up in the 'Food Waste Hero Challenge Photo Competition' and have been awarded a cheque prize of £100 for our Eco-Schools Committee. We also received a certificate of participation.

Well Done to the superheroes who took part in the food waste challenge! #wastehero