Shanagolden National School is an Active School which means we are a school where ‘Physical Activity is valued, promoted and enjoyed by all.’ We are very excited to have just received our Third Active Flag!
We have a busy Active Schools Committee made up of children from Third to Sixth who are constantly thinking of ways to keep us active. We enjoy taking part in many different activities and programmes.
Each child in Shanagolden National School is encouraged to be active at school and at home and to have fun while doing so. We promote and try to achieve at least sixty minutes of physical activity a day. We use programmes such as Go Noodle and Busy Breaks on days where the weather prevents us from getting outside. Each year we run an Active Schools Week which is one of the highlights of our school calendar.
Physical Education
The P.E. curriculum provides children with learning opportunities through the medium of movement and contributes to their overall development by helping them to lead full, active and healthy lives. There are six strands in the P.E. curriculum-
• Athletics
• Dance
• Gymnastics
• Games
• Outdoor and adventure activities
• Aquatics
Teachers cover each of the above six strands over the school year. In the case of aquatics, children in the middle and senior classrooms get a 5-week block of swimming lessons in Askeaton Swimming Pool. The on-land water safety programme “PAWS” was thought in Juniors-2nd class this year.
In addition, all classes get a 7-week block of gymnastics with our gymnastics coach Mark, 3-week block of yoga sessions with A yoga instructor, a 7-week block of G.A.A. coaching with members of the local community. Third Class took part in the Art in Schools Dance project. They really enjoyed it and learned lots of dance moves. The children had five dance workshops with Aoife O’Brien where they composed their own dance. They then performed the dance for the whole school. It was wonderful to see all the children take and express themselves through dance.
All classes agreed to focus on strengthening the delivery of athletics, and followed the fit4class programme. Fit4Class is Athletics Ireland’s teacher-led programme that introduces primary school children to athletics in a fun, engaging and non-competitive environment. The programme focuses on the use of games to develop fitness, whilst enhancing agility, balance, and co-ordination – all fundamental to long term physical athletics development. Teachers used the Move Well Move Often programme and focused on developing the fundamental skills of manipulation-catching, throwing, kicking, striking with the hand, striking with an implement.
Children completed active homework for the final term. Children could choose their own activities from the Active Homework Chart
Physical Activity
We aim to maximise all opportunities for physical activity at school. The children get out to play in the yard & astro pitch as much as possible, and on days when poor weather prevents outdoor play, children use the school hall.
Our Active Schools Breaks, were decided between teachers & pupils in each class, this year it ran from November 8th – December 4th
The school regularly organises physical activity initiatives. Our Active Events were the ‘Walk on Wednesday’ which involved parents, children and staff gathering to walk to school together,during Seachtain na Gaeilge, each class was given Irish Dancing lessons by Mrs. Fitzgerald, a whole-school Céilí followed which took place in the school hall.
We completed the Run around Ireland challenge from March 14th– April 8th. Each class recorded their laps and calculated how many milestones they reached.
Our Active Schools Week took place from May 3rd-6th this year. Please see our section on active schools week to see our pictures. Our playground leaders were members of our active school committee, who took part in ‘Active Lines’ with the whole school.
For the final term, all classes received active homework weekly.
Gymnastics.
The children in our school have been taking part in Gymnastics over the last few weeks. Here are some pictures of all our classes improving their skills and having great fun in the process.
Run Around Ireland Challenge.
We are currently taking part in the Active Schools Run Around Ireland Challenge. This 4-week challenge encourages schools to build a running break into every day.
It’s an excellent way for children to learn about some of Ireland’s most famous landmarks and ideal for bringing learning outdoors.
Each class is running around the school daily and together we are adding our distances and travelling virtually to various landmarks across Ireland.
This is an excellent initiative to get all children active on a daily basis.
Even the rain doesn’t stop us!
Partnerships
Our Active Schools committee is a dedicated team of children from 3rd-6th class, who have work hard to organise and deliver events during the year. They encouraged the whole school to become involved in ‘Active Lines’ at the end of lunch breaks. They conducted and displayed the results of a survey ‘What club are you in?’ from children in 3rd-6th class. Our Active School Slogan is “Walk, run or play, get active every day!”.
Our school invites sports clubs, athletes and physical activity providers from the local community to talk to the boys and girls or to give taster sessions of their activity and we constantly try to raise awareness of the huge variety of ways in which people can be physically active.
To date we have been very lucky to have two members of our community Maurice & Ray, who have been training each class weekly in developing GAA skills.
Third class participated in the art in dance school project.
We have worked with Askeaton Swimming Pool to deliver swimming lessons to the middle and senior classes.
Mark our Gymnastics coach provided a 7 week programme to all classes. (See photos above)
Our final coach this year was Ms. Aishling Murphy who delivered a 3 week block of yoga to all children and staff.
We have contacted both our local sports partnership & local sports inclusion disability officer to help develop a more inclusive programme. Both Parents and Pupils are invaluable to keeping our school an active school, a questionnaire was given to all pupils and parents. The results helped inform our planning for future events, and helped to plan our Active Schools week additional lessons.
We are so proud of our students sporting achievements.
Well done…
Well done to all the children that took part in the Community Games Sports Day recently.
Well done to Tomás on receiving a Player of the Tournament award at the Recent Birney Madigan Tournament.
Well done to Jean and Eva who play with the Limerick Desmond soccer team and won their Munster final against a West Cork team recently.
Well done to Abi and Anna who played with the West Limerick Team in this years Larkin Shield Competition.
And also well done to Eva and Jean who were picked to play on the Desmond League Soccer Team recently.
The Boys and Girls in 5th and 6th Class made a welcome return to inter-schools football competitions this term. They all really enjoyed getting out and playing with other schools.
Active Schools Week.
Active School’s Week is a big part of our commitment to increased physical education and physical activity for our whole school community as we work towards the goal of Active Flag. An Active School is one where physical activity is valued, promoted and enjoyed by all.
Our timetable for the week included Daily PE lessons, Daily walks, trips to the playground, Active Homework and yoga sessions.
In addition to the activities above…
- We encouraged each child to set themselves an individual active goal for the week.
- Each classroom used our newly labelled Active Walkway each day with plenty of interesting activities to stimulate both body and mind.
- During Lunchbreak children were encouraged to participate in Active Lines organised by our Playground Leaders
- Senior classes took part in a Teacher vs. Pupil challenge
- Children were encouraged to send videos of their active homework
