Scoil Chríost Rí has been named Ireland’s Sustainable Travel School of the Year at a ceremony in Dublin today.
An Taisce Green-Schools presented the school with their award at the event honouring the winners of this year’s Green-Schools Big Travel Challenge 2025 in Haughton House of Dublin Zoo.
Three other schools were also awarded on the day for their efforts promoting sustainable and active travel modes to school.
Schools took on the Big Travel Challenge from February 4-14, during which they were asked to concentrate on one or more sustainable transport modes for two weeks to see if they could achieve real, lasting change in the travel behaviour of their staff and students.
The Challenge is an initiative of the Green-Schools Travel theme, which is supported by the NTA and the Department of Transport.
Scoil Chríost Rí, an all girls school of 850 pupils, excelled and truly embraced the challenge.
Throughout the Big Travel Challenge, they saw a record number of students actively taking part in the challenge, and managed to double their park and stride numbers, and had almost half of the school walking or wheeling.
They also organised a ‘Galentines’ WOW (Walk on Wednesday) Day, linking in their walking with friendships, positive relationships and forming healthy habits.
Green-Schools Travel Programme Manager, Allison Phillips, congratulated Scoil Chríost Rí for their achievements.
She said: “It was truly inspiring to see students from across the country taking on the challenge to ‘love our health, love our planet’ by supporting active and sustainable travel to school through the Green-Schools Travel’s Big Travel Challenge.
“Your work is testament to the collaborative work of the students, teachers and whole school community, as well as our partnerships with Local Authorities, the National Transport Authority and Department of Transport.”
The top schools from each county were awarded for their part in promoting green travel modes to school as part of the BIG Travel Challenge, with a regional winner chosen from them.
The Staffroom Challenge was back by popular demand as well, extending the competition to school teachers and staff to travel more sustainably, and get creative in doing so.
Other initiatives included best carpool karaoke, most creative classroom workshops and best social media post.
