By Claire Corrigan
It was a beautiful after noon as the children of Raharney National School, dressed in colourful costumes, to celebrate the school’s impressive achievement of receiving their sixth Green-Schools flag.
All classes gathered in the gym to welcome two very special guests who were former pupils at the school; The Academic’s Matthew and Stephen Murtagh.
Principal Angela Farrell thanked all those involved in the school being awarded the Green Flag Global Citizenship. “The Green Flag is awarded every two years, so we have working for 12 years to ensure that we receive it. Every two years is just as difficult as the first one, as the children will tell you. It’s an international award so you have to put in the work, and as it shows, Ms. Downs (Ann-Marie) and her the green committee worked very hard and made sure we worked very hard to make sure that our school looks well and that we have good waste management. We have to record how much we put into bins and be careful about what goes into what bin. It is well worth it when you see the children out in the garden planting flowers and preparing for today, which has been great fun. This day is for all the parents and pupils to enjoy the flag and all that it means to us.”
Ms. Farrell said that the children all made a huge effort for the flag’s global citizenship theme. “All the children are beautifully dressed representing different countries. We took a record of how many countries are represented here today and there are between 40 and 50.”
Ms. Farrell then played a slideshow of the work that the committee and pupils undertake to ensure their school is the best it can be, which was accompanied by The Academic’s hit single ‘Different’. “When I asked Matthew and Stephen to come, the first Matthew said was that he remembered when they raised it when he was there so that was nice to invite him back now that they’re famous and help us out,” Ms. Farrell beamed.
Matthew said that they were honoured to be asked back to Raharney National School to raise the Green Flag. “Me and Stephen know from experience know how much work goes into it. I would like you to give a big round of applause to all the teachers and students. Myself and Stephen are pretty busy at the moment and are releasing our album in September and then we will be on tour in American and Europe for the rest of the year so we are really looking forward to that!” Matthew concluded.
