PE Challenge

The Active School Committee came up with the idea to create PE challenges that students can complete at home each week. The aim is to encourage students to be more active while enjoying being outside! Students can then send their photos and descriptions of completed challenges to activeschools@scaine.ie so that we can commend each and every student for their efforts in completing the challenges. Keep an eye on Google Classroom to see the weekly challenges and well done to everyone who have sent in their photos so far!

Feel Good Friday

The Active School Committee have been coming up with fun activities and challenges for classes to complete at 10am every Friday. We've been completing strength challenges, cardio challenges and even dance challenges while having lots of fun! Well done to the students on the committee for coming up with the ideas and for the whole school for completing them!

Rith Glas

As part of Seachtain na Gaeilge, we have been completing our 'Rith Glas' at the track over the last few years. The whole school dons green outfits and runs a few laps of the track while using cupla focail Gaeilge!

Santa Dash

We had another brilliant Santa Dash at the track this year. Each stream came down in their Santa hats and jumpers and completed four laps of the track! Fantastic effort everyone!

Marathon Kids

All of the 5th classes have been running every day since September to complete 42.2 kilometers, which is the same distance as a marathon. Come rain or shine, they completed their runs every day in school for 8 weeks and they completed their final kilometers in Morton's Stadium, Santry. Well done to all the students, teachers and SNA's! We're all very proud of you!

Maths@thetrack

Active Schools Week

We had another brilliant Active Schools Week in Scoil Áine this year. All of the streams went down to the Lucan Harriers running track and took part in lots of fun games and activities. We also had a student teacher soccer match that finished a close 4-3 to the teachers. Well done everyone and we look forward to next year already!

Santry Athletics

A big congratulations to all the boys and girls who took in Santry Athletics races. You represented our school brilliantly and you did yourselves proud! Fantastic effort to all involved!

We received our Active Schools Flag in June 2021 with the hard work of all students and teachers!

This year the pupils and staff of Scoil Áine are working towards an Active Schools Flag for our school. The aim of this initiative is to encourage children and teachers to be more active, get more exercise, and to take greater care of our minds and bodies. Visit the active
schools website for more information on this initiative. http://www.activeschoolflag.ie

An Active School Slogan competition was held throughout the school in October. Our slogan was created by Sophia in Mr. D Lawlors class.

Our Active School Slogan is:

'Be active and have some fun. 60 minutes and all is done.'

by Sophia, 6th class (Scoil Áine Naofa Active Schools Slogan)

Active Schools news

April 2021:

'Sprint to Summer'

The Active Schools committee are challenging all classes in the school to see which class can run the most kilometers from now until the Summer holidays. All classes can track their run on our active schools board.

Room 16 practicing some running techniques.

January/February 2021:

Despite being back on Google Classrooms, the teachers continued to encourage children to be active at home. Throughout the day teachers gave the children movement breaks and active challenges to work on at home. Children took part in the 'Climb the Heights' challenge for 4 weeks. They skipped (or did jumping jacks) to reach the heights of different mountain peaks around Europe. 1 skip or jumping jack=1 metre. It was great to see the children and their families getting involved in this challenge.

November 2020:

Each class took part in 'Active Walkway' challenges throughout the month of November. Each class tried to complete the walkway 5 times every week. Mr. Walsh and Mr. Somers challenged themselves to walk an hour to school every day during the month of November. Without fail, they walked to and from school every single day!

Another active month here in Scoil Áine- the cold weather won't stop us!

October 2020:

Whole School Initiative Launch- 5k and Far Away.

We are going to complete a virtual walk around Ireland and visit different towns and cities. When we have reached different destinations we will explore these areas on Google Earth, Google Maps and Google Street View.

Our first challenge was to see how many kilometres we could travel as a school on our annual sponsored walk. Collectively, we walked a total of 14km which is the same distance as Scoil Áine Naofa to O' Connell Street!

September 2020:

Our school is taking part in the European School Sports Day Initiative. Each week we are going to complete an active challenge. For the first active challenge, the children were encouraged to walk or run 2020 (or more) steps for the year 2020! Some classes completed this challenge in the classroom by walking on the spot. Some children recorded the amount of steps they walked/ran on yard and totalled their steps at the end of the day.

Have a look at some of the fantastic art work that the children created for European School Sports Day.

Follow the link to find out more about the initiative:

https://www.essd.eu/

April 2020:

Active Home Week 27th April-3rd May

Unfortunately due to Covid 19 we could not go ahead with our Active Schools Week in school. So instead, we took part in the 'Active Home Week' challenge.

Each day we set a different challenge for the children to try. Mr Lawlor recorded these challenges and the children received them on google classroom. Teachers also provided the children with PE at home videos and the ideas cloud to encourage children to be active for at least 60 minutes every day.

We had an amazing response to the 'Active Home Week' challenge and many children and families sent us their videos of them being active at home.The staff of Scoil Áine also took part and created challenges of their own!!

February 2020:

For the month of February we had some outdoor music to keep everyone moving in the cold weather!

January 2020:

All classes took part in Operation transformations 10@10 for the month of January. What a great way to actively kickstart the new year!

December 2019:

The Active School committee decided to add more activity into the month of December. The whole school took part in the ’12 Active Days of Christmas’. Have a look at the 12 Activities below.

On the last day of school before Christmas the whole school took part in a Santa Fun Run in Lucan Harriers running track. Santa himself even made an appearance!!

Santa Dash Video

November 2019:

Active Schools Launch Day

Our Active Schools Launch Day was on Friday the 15th of November. All children, and teachers, really enjoyed the day.

We had activities like :

• Walk to school
• Lunch time concert with DJ Greene
• 10@10
• Active lines
• Cha- cha slide
• A motivational speech from James Casserly

We can't wait to continue activities like these throughout the school year. Well done everyone!

The P.E. curriculum

Physical Education is allocated 1 hour per week of overall teaching time. In these lessons teachers use a range of resources and equipment.

There are 6 strands in the P.E. curriculum:

• Athletics
• Dance
• Games
• Gymnastics
• Outdoor and Adventure
• Aquatics- The PAWS Water Safety Programme is taught by each class level every April, using the Online resources and lesson plans.

All teachers are following the same P.E. plan which focuses on a different strand each month. Here are some of the wonderful lessons in action.

Physical activity:

All teachers encourage physical activity throughout the school day. All children have two outdoor breaks throughout the school day. There are four yards- one for 3^rd/4^th classes, one for 5^th/6^th classes, a walking yard to ensure inclusivity for all and an area to use outdoor equipment. Our fantastic Active Schools committee lead these activities every day for the classes using the equipment that day.

For the month of February we had some outdoor music to keep everyone moving in the cold weather!

Children also have movement breaks throughout the school day in the classroom through websites like GoNoodle, Just Dance etc.

Partnerships:

Our Children’s ‘Active School Committee’ work with all the staff to create ideas and activities that can be implemented into everyday school life. The team meet regularly to discuss initiatives that can be brought in to develop on and improve on our Active Schools Action Plan. Each class has a nominated committee member and they share ideas discussed at meetings with members of their own class and encourage feedback, support and more ideas. So far they have been doing an excellent job in encouraging the school to be more active. They facilitate Active Lines throughout the year and organise the outdoor equipment at lunch time, while proudly wearing their Active Schools vest.

We have an ‘Active Schools’ noticeboard that students can find information about the latest challenges and ideas going on in our school. Our latest challenge is the ‘5K and Far away’ whole school challenge, encouraging students to accumulate steps and kilometres, while staying within their 5k, and using their totals to travel to different parts of Ireland and beyond!

We have great partnerships with local sports clubs in the area. The students have been practicing their GAA skills, hockey skills and athletic skills in recent years. It’s been great for the students to learn new skills and become familiar with sports facilities and training that are available in the local area.

We are big Dublin GAA fans in our school and take great pride in decorating the school inside and out when Dublin reach the final. The Sam Maguire has visited our school in each of the last 6 years and there has always been great excitement leading up to it. Long may it continue!

Throughout the year we have involvement from different outdoor agencies:

• GAA coach takes various classes throughout the year for football and hurling.
• 5^th classes took part in Marathon Kids where they ran an overall distance of 26. 2 miles.
• GoNoodle and active dance breaks.
• All classes take part in Operation Transformations 10@10 workouts for the month of January.
• In October we had coaches from Hockey Ireland working with 3^rd classes over a 6 week period.