Active School Committee

The Active School Committee have very important jobs:

• They motivate us to get active.

• They organise P.E and playground equipment.

• They keep the P.E storeroom tidy.

• They lead playground activities on the yard.

• They helped in the selection process of our ASF slogan.

• They have committee meetings to plan and organise ASF events.

• They keep all classes up to date on ASF news and events.

• They keep the ASF noticeboard up to date.

We also have a class representative from each class in the school to work alongside the Committee members and promote all Active Flag initiatives.

Our class representatives are:

Active Break Challenge

As a whole school initiative, from November 13th to December 8th, every class from junior infants to sixth class completed the Active Break Every Day challenge, over a period of 4 weeks. This proved to be a huge success.  Our students were introduced to Team Ireland Olympic athletes who challenged them in their chosen Olympic sport-related movement break, in a fun and inclusive way. The Dare to Believe Schools Programme provided twenty short movement break videos suitable for all ages and abilities. Our class representatives helped out by ensuring the movement breaks were completed and by filling out a challenge chart daily to track progress. The children enjoyed finding out a little bit more about our Team Ireland Olympic athletes and their chosen sport.

Our next task was to work, as a whole school, to decide upon an Active School Slogan. We had a fantastic response to this. It was a very difficult task for our committee members to choose a winner amongst all of the excellent artwork and catchy mottos. The committee chose a winner from every class with each winner receiving a small prize. Congratulations to our overall winner, Oisín from 2nd class, who came up with the following catchy slogan, which will be our Active School Slogan for the 2023/ 2024 school year:

Jump up and say

"Tá mé reidh"

For an exercise filled day

PE – Curricular provision

Pupils in all classes are provided with 60 minutes timetabled P.E. per week as a minimum. We have indoor and outdoor facilities – hall, astro, yard space and football pitch. All teachers teach at least 5 of the 6 P.E. strands - Aquatics, Athletics, Dance, Gymnastics, Games, Outdoor and Adventure every year.

Pupils in our 2nd classes attend swimming lessons in the local pool.

Our school teaches the Land PAWS water safety programme to 2nd, 3rd and 4th classes. Teachers endeavour to allocate a balanced amount of teaching time to each of the different strands and work together to strengthen their delivery of a different P.E. strand each year. To guide our delivery of the P.E Curriculum, the P.S.S.I. lesson plans and Move Well, Move Often resources are used.

Our school ensures that P.E. activities are planned so that they are accessible to all. Members of staff regularly undertake C.P.D. in P.E. and ideas and resources are shared among staff. Our Active Flag notice board is used for sharing resources also.

Our school carries out an annual audit of P.E. equipment and resources are organised and clearly labelled in our P.E. equipment area.

During Active Week P.E. homework replaces written homework.

This year we prioritised the Gymnastics strand and also focused on locomotor skills in particular running as we had a goal to complete the Marathon Kids programme, Run Around Europe and Road to Paris challenges this year to support the Athletics Strand.

Physical Activity

Two daily playground running breaks are provided for all classes. Classes have access to basketball courts, two fully equipped playgrounds, an Astroturf and a football pitch. Pupils also have access to sports equipment during breaks.

Our playground leaders encourage activity during break time and ensure equipment is looked after.

All staff use the signposted Active School Walkway around the school to promote physical activity and for cross curricular learning.

Challenges

All classes completed the 4 week Active Break Everyday challenge in November and December and the active breaks continued throughout the school year.

All classes completed the Run Around Europe challenge. This was a daily whole school initiative over a 4 week period in February and March. In total as a whole school we ran 28,840 laps in the 4 weeks.

All classes complete an extended classroom based physical activity break on wet days, some of the activities include the Dare to Believe Olympic Movement programme, Go Noodle, Bizzy breaks amongst others.

All activities are planned to ensure they are accessible to all.

A number of classes complete the Daily Mile throughout the school year. 3rd and 4th classes participate in the Marathon Kids programme and this year they were invited to run their final lap in Lough Lannagh, Castlebar on April 26th with former Olympic athlete David Gillick joining them on the day.

Tri Heroes

The pupils from 5th and 6th classes participate in the Tri Heroes programme each year. Over the course of the Tri Heroes programme, students enhanced their swimming, bike and running skills under the instruction of Triathlon Ireland qualified coaches. This year the students completed their Splash and Dash - swim and run on the 19 th of March . They also completed their duathlon - bike / run section on the 15 th of April at the school, cheered on by 3rd and 4th classes. One of our students followed up on this introduction by competing in the All-Ireland Primary Schools duathlon held in Narraghmore, Co. Kildare and was placed second.

Gaelic Football

The school competes each year in the Cumann na mBunscol Gaelic football competitions for both boys and girls.

Tag Rugby

The school also participates in Tag Rugby sessions. This year 4th class competed in a Tag Rugby blitz in Ballina Rugby club.

Hurling/Camogie

3rd and 4th classes participated in the Anthony Golden Memorial Hurling Tournament this year for the first time. A fantastic day was had and they managed to come away with some silverware . This was supported by James Stephens Hurling/Camogie Club.

Soccer

Our sixth class competed in the FAI seven a side soccer challenge and won the Ballina area event

Cross Country Athletics

The North Mayo Primary Schools Cross Country championships were held in Belleek, Ballina on the 21st of September in beautiful autumnal sunshine. The school was represented by four teams as they competed in races for 3rd/4th class girls, 3rd/4th class boys, 5th/6th class girls and 5th/6th class boys respectively. As well as winning some of the individual prizes, our school won all the team awards with great displays of team running.

The Mayo Primary Schools Cross Country Championships were also held in Belleek, Ballina and the four great races through the beautiful parkland course took place on the 28th of September 2023. All four teams from the school qualified for the Connaught championships and two of our pupils were individual winners on the day.

Four teams from our school qualified for the Connaught Primary Schools Cross Country championships held in the Palace Fields in Tuam on the 11th of October 2023. All of our teams ran very well and three of them were lucky enough to win prizes on the day. We retained the Senior Boys title for the second year and two of our Senior Boys team were placed first and third in the race overall.

Partnerships

Partnerships within and outside the school are an important aspect of the Active School Flag. One of the most important partnerships in the Active School Flag programme is with the pupils of the school. Our Active School committee do a great job promoting active initiatives in our school and ensuring that everyone is encouraged to be as active as possible. The team meet regularly with our teacher representatives to identify priorities, offer suggestions, problem-solve any issues and plan new ideas. The Active School Representatives are also very good at reminding their teachers to take movement breaks throughout the day.

We are very fortunate to have had a variety of partnerships during our Active Flag mission.

Mayo Sports Partnership

Ballina Rugby Club

Ballina Stephenites, Ardnaree Sarsfields, Castleconnor GAA Clubs

James Stephens Hurling/Camogie Club

Moy Valley Athletic Club

Glasgow Celtic Foundation

Ballina Town F.C

Ballina Swimming Pool

Fifth and Sixth classes working on bike handling skills as part of the Tri Heroes programme - activity in our school covers all strands of the PE curriculum

Active School Week

Active Schools Week took place from the 29th of April to the 3rd of May 2024. 

We had a fantastic week filled with lots of fun activities. We would like to thank all the volunteers, visitors and the Parents Association who gave so generously of their time to help make our week a huge success.

Throughout the week several activities were arranged including Gaelic football coaching, soccer coaching, yoga classes and dance lessons to name but a few.

As part of our Active Schools Week, written homework was replaced by active homework. We concluded our Active Week with a Dance Take Over and a Fun Run.

We are really looking forward to Active Schools’ Week 2025.

Sincere thanks to Professional Soccer Player David Cawley and Gaelic Footbal goalkeeping All-Star David Clarke for all their support during Active School Week. We learned a lot

On Friday of Active School Week, we had a whole school Fun Run with loads of warm up and cool down activities. Here are our Junior Classes in action

Our Senior Classes set up the kilometre long Fun Run course on the school pitch and they also took part.

Dance Takeover