Active Schools
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One of our school’s primary aims is to cultivate a physically active school community. This we hope to do by continuing our long association with the GAA but also by diversifying the types of physical activities we can engage in through our physical education lessons. We work hard to cover all of the Physical Education Strands but also ensure that pupils gain the opportunity to be exposed to a variety of sports which they will enjoy during their school PE lessons but which may also encourage them to engage with clubs and organisations outside of school time to develop such sports experience even more.
The P.E. Curriculum
There are 6 strands in the P.E. curriculum:
- Athletics
- Dance
- Games
- Gymnastics
- Outdoor and Adventure
- Aquatics
5 out of the 6 strands are covered each year, with Aquatics being taught both in the classroom (water safety) and in the swimming pool (lessons begin in 1st class).
Link to PE Curriculum : www.curriculumonline.ie/Primary/Curriculum-Areas/Physical-Education/
Our school has an up-to-date Physical Education plan and pupils are provided with one hour timetabled PE per week.
Teachers use a variety of resources in order to help deliver the P.E Curriculum including PSSI lesson plans, PDST Move Well Move Often Fundamental Movement Skills, LAND PAWS Ireland Water Safety resources and many more.
. Our school ensures that children with special needs can play a full role in all PE opportunities.
Every child’s progress in PE is discussed with parents at Parent-Teacher meetings and feedback about progress in Physical Education is included in annual school reports.
Our school has adequate, age appropriate equipment to teach all of the PE strands and our school makes maximum use of the PE equipment available to us.
Our school undertakes a PE equipment audit once a year and all PE equipment and resources are kept to a good standard.
Our school prioritised a PE strand for further development in 2021/2022.
We targeted our Outdoor and Adventure strand this year.
Teachers use a variety of resources in order to help deliver the P.E Curriculum including PSSI lesson plans, PDST Move Well Move Often Fundamental Movement Skills, LAND PAWS Ireland Water Safety resources and many more.
. Our school ensures that children with special needs can play a full role in all PE opportunities.
Every child’s progress in PE is discussed with parents at Parent-Teacher meetings and feedback about progress in Physical Education is included in annual school reports.
Our school has adequate, age appropriate equipment to teach all of the PE strands and our school makes maximum use of the PE equipment available to us.
Our school undertakes a PE equipment audit once a year and all PE equipment and resources are kept to a good standard.
Our school prioritised a PE strand for further development in 2021/2022.
We targeted our Outdoor and Adventure strand this year.
Fundamental Movement Skills - Move Well Move Often
Ms Fahy attended CPD with PDST in relation to Physical Literacy (Motivation and choice).
She shared the material with the staff and we planned how we would incorporate the fundamental movement skills across all of our strand areas.
She shared the material with the staff and we planned how we would incorporate the fundamental movement skills across all of our strand areas.
Our P.E Store Room
Our P.E. store room is well equipped and our Active Committee conduct an audit of our P.E Equipment each year. Members of our Active Committee tidy and label our equipment and monitor our store room each term so that everything is easy to find and reach when needed.
Outdoor and Adventure Strand
This year we focused on the Outdoor and Adventure Strand. Each teacher was provided with the PSSI Lesson plans for their appropriate age group and all resources were made and prepared in advance for each class. Where possible we aimed to incorporate our schools Active Walkway Track into our orienteering lessons. We also tried to incorporate orienteering in a cross curricular way in order to develop our map skills and strengthen our team work.
Infant Orienteering - Easter Egg Hunt
We used our Orienteering skills to find all of teachers hidden Easter Eggs.
We had to take a photograph from the starting point and locate this image around the school grounds. When we got to the correct control point we had to draw the shape and colour it the correct colour and best of all, take a delicious egg for our team!
It was Eggggscellent!
We had to take a photograph from the starting point and locate this image around the school grounds. When we got to the correct control point we had to draw the shape and colour it the correct colour and best of all, take a delicious egg for our team!
It was Eggggscellent!
Orienteering PE Lessons Infants
We developed our orienteering skills while working in pairs. We used our control card and had to locate various animals around the yard and colour the corresponding square to that matched the animal. We also enjoyed taking part in a Photostar Orienteering Challenge.
Developing Orienteering Skills Rang 1 & 2
We have been busy trying to develop our Orienteering skills. We started by using photographs to help us find a control point at which we had to find the matching letter to the photograph.
Then we moved to using and practicing our mapping skills in Geography. We had a map of the school grounds and learned to understand the key/legend of the map. We then used the map to help us locate all 14 control points on our school Active Walkway path/Siúilímís Le Chéile path.
We recorded the letters located at each of these Walkway Control points and these letters then helped us solve puzzle questions as a team.
We explored all around our school grounds, practiced our mapping skills, solved connected puzzle questions and best of all worked as a team! Orienteering is one of our favourite activities.
Then we moved to using and practicing our mapping skills in Geography. We had a map of the school grounds and learned to understand the key/legend of the map. We then used the map to help us locate all 14 control points on our school Active Walkway path/Siúilímís Le Chéile path.
We recorded the letters located at each of these Walkway Control points and these letters then helped us solve puzzle questions as a team.
We explored all around our school grounds, practiced our mapping skills, solved connected puzzle questions and best of all worked as a team! Orienteering is one of our favourite activities.
Swimming
Aquatic Strand
We were really delighted to finally return to Monaghan Leisure Centre this year, 2022, to complete the Aquatic Strand of the PE curriculum. We focus on the water based learning outcomes and skill development of swimming in the leisure center. We will complete the LAND PAWS learning outcomes with our class teachers and then we hope we will receive our Swimming Certificates following the assessments at the end of the school year. A big thank you to all our Swimming Instructors at Monaghan Leisure Centre, we enjoyed every minute.
Each class in school focused on the Strand of Swimming during Active Schools Week.
Each class learned about water safety and completed the series of lessons from
Water Safety Ireland’s PAWS programme (Primary Aquatics Water Safety).
Paws outlines outlines the essential life saving guidelines that every child needs to know.
Our entire school are now LAND PAWS Heroes!
Junior and Senior Infants LAND PAWS HEROES!
Senior and First Class LAND PAWS HEROES!
First and Second Class LAND PAWS HEROES!
Third and Fourth Class LAND PAWS HEROES!
Fifth and Sixth Class LAND PAWS HEROES!
Tennis Coaching - Dundalk Tennis Club
We are very lucky to have Tennis introduced as a new Sport to our school through our partnership with coaches from Dundalk Tennis Club. We have had sessions with Gus, Deirdre and John. Following our sessions we run a summer Tennis League. Each year our games are getting more and more competitive. Nothing beats a game of tennis on a sunny, summer's afternoon.
