Physical Education Physical Activity Partnerships Active School Week
Physical Education
In accordance with our Physical Education plan, all classes receive 1 hour of timetabled PE every week.
We promote the key messages of the Primary PE Curriculum in our lessons.
Teachers utilise the PSSI/PDST lesson plans to facilitate the delivery of a broad and balanced PE Curriculum for all age groups.
Class teachers use the Move Well, Move Often resources from the PDST to promote and teach the fundamental movement skills, linked with the different PE Strands.
Athletics
The children undertake a range of athletics skills development during PE lessons such as; walking, jogging, running, practising the technique of hurdling, participating in relays, skipping, exploration of various ways of jumping and developing the overarm throw. During the process of renewing our Active School Flag, a walkway route has been created surrounding the pitch area, which enables the children to practise walking, jogging and running on, during athletics lessons.
New equipment such as; foam javelins have been purchased, which are greatly beneficial in the development of throwing techniques.
Dance
All classes actively engage in consecutive weeks of dance lessons.
Classes participate in a whole school dance performance at the end of the block of dance lessons. The lessons are facilitated by local dance teachers.
Gymnastics
All classes attend the Mattie McDonagh Centre for timetabled gymnastics classes.
The children further develop their gymnastics skills on the gymnastics mats, benches and additional gymnastics equipment at the centre.
Games
As a school, we have agreed to strengthen the delivery of the Strand of Games-building on the childrens’ existing skills and teaching progressive skills development according to class levels.
The children enjoy actively engaging in fun warm up games before the main PE lessons.
Classes are taught a range of sports during PE- Football, hurling, soccer, rugby, basketball, netball, hockey and rounders.
Our school has purchased a variety of games resources, which are greatly beneficial to the delivery of the Strand of Games.
GAA, soccer and rugby coaches in the local area support the delivery of the Strand of Games.
Physical Education for PE
Outdoor and Adventure Activities
Teachers utilise lessons from the PDST/ PSSI resources to teach a range of cooperative and collaborative outdoor and adventure skills to the children.
Classes also avail of the Active School Walkway for additional orienteering challenges.
Aquatics
3rd -6th Class attend swimming lessons in blocks of 6 weeks at Roscommon Leisure Centre.
The children are taught specific swimming tasks based on their swimming level by the swimming coaches.
Every pupil receives a certificate at the end of the 6 week block.
In November, David Fitzpatrick from Water Safety Ireland facilitated an informative and practical workshop to all classes – The children were taught essential water safety skills from the Land PAWS programme.
Land PAWS Water Safety Programme
Physical Activity
The Playground
Our school facilitates the use of playground equipment at lunch break. During the process of striving to renew our Active School Flag, new facilities have been added to our pitch area- A walkway, an astroturf for playing games on, a hopscotch game on astroturf, a wooden climbing and play facility along with new PE playground resources.
Our fantastic Playground Team distribute equipment at break.
The Playground Team lead the classes in Active Lines’ exercise tasks on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday. An additional 5 minutes extra yard time is awarded every week, to the best classes actively participating in the Active Lines’ tasks.
Playground Activities
Active School Walkway
Our school created an Active School Walkway and uses the walkway to promote physical activity and cross- curricular learning. To celebrate the final day of the ‘Run Around Europe’ challenge, the children worked collaboratively together to locate and correctly identify answers on the walkway signs. After completing the assigned Walkway tasks, they participated in an Easter egg hunt.
Run Around Europe
Active Break Every Day Challenge
Over the past number of years, our school has successfully completed the ‘Active Break Every Day’ challenge.
In 2022, classes undertook a range of daily active break tasks, which included:
-Drop Everything and Dance
-Walkway tables or spellings.
-Valerie’s bootcamp and exercise classes.
-Cardio desk drumming.
-Running laps around the school.
In 2023, all classes participated in the Dare To Believe Olympic Movement Breaks. They learned about our sporting heroes along with their specialised sport, while actively engaging in the fun sporting tasks.
Run a Day Challenge
In 2022 and 2023 all classes completed the ‘Run Around Ireland’ challenge.
In 2023, families participated in the walking /running challenge at home too.
In 2024, all classes participated in the ‘Run Around Europe’ challenge. The classes selected European destinations, which they aimed to reach over the 4 week
challenge. The children enjoyed working as a team to reach their destinations and learned about European capitals in the process.
During Assembly and over the intercom, the children discussed their weekly progress and identified the names of countries, they had passed through, on their journey. They also informed us of new facts, which they had learned about their chosen European countries/capital cities.
Climb the Heights Skipping Challenge
In 2023, all classes actively participated in the ‘Climb the Heights’ skipping challenge. The classes had great fun calculating the total number of skips, to see which European mountain peak they had reached.
Skipping Challenge
Annual Events
We regularly incorporate physical activity into annual events.
These include:
Active Halloween- Halloween Tag, Pumpkin Bowling, Spooky Penalties and a Halloween Disco.
Christmas Fun Run- The children run laps around the school while wearing their Christmas clothes of choice.
World Book Day celebration- The children walk laps around the school, while dressed as their chosen book character.
Easter egg hunts on the yard/ pitch area.
Annual Calendar Events
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Partnerships
Active School Slogan
We held a school competition, whereby the children had to create a new Active School slogan for Ballaghlea NS.
Well done to Charlie McMeeking on the winning Active School slogan:
Inside, Outside, We Don’t Care!
We Can Be Active Everywhere!
The Active School slogan is now framed and takes pride of place, on the wall in our main corridor.
Active School Committee
We have a brilliant Active School Committee, who are enthusiastic about promoting fun, active tasks throughout the school.
We hold regular meetings, where we discuss upcoming Active School events. The Active School Committee inform the children at Assembly or over the intercom about a range of topics such as; Active School events, Active Lines, new sports equipment purchased and playground games. The Active School Committee conducted a whole school survey- ‘What clubs are you in? They discussed the results with the classes.
Coaching
We have fantastic coaches from sporting clubs within the local area who provide exceptional coaching to the pupils of Ballaghlea NS.
The local sports clubs include: St. Brendan’s GAA, Ballygar Hurling Club, Shiven Rovers AFC and Creggs RFC.
Active School Week
Our Active School Week takes place annually during the month of June.
Every class teacher replaces homework with physical activity tasks during ASW.
Thank you to all the coaches from the local clubs, who provided fantastic coaching during our Active School Week in June 2023.
-Hurling training-Noel Mannion, Ballygar Hurling Club.
-Football training-Eoin O’ Shaughnessy, St. Brendan’s Football Club.
-Tag rugby-Ronan Dowd, Creggs RFC.
-Futsal soccer-Jill Heavey and Kiera Trayers, Shiven Rovers AFC.
Thank you to:
Nicki Kelly, who facilitated an energetic whole school dance class on the basketball court.
Families were invited to participate in the dance class.
Teacher- Ms. D. McPhillips, who facilitated yoga classes.
Valerie Fahy, our SNA, who facilitated bootcamp exercise classes.
Teacher- Mrs. Sutton, who provided Athletics coaching to classes.
Additional sporting activities during ASW in 2023 included:
Let’s Go! School Tour. 1st, 2nd, 3rd Class.
School Tour to Bay Sports. 4th-6th Class.
A walk to Shiven.
Table tennis on the yard.
Walkway cross- curricular activities.
Sports Day
Sports Days are action packed days at Ballaghlea NS.
Activities include: Sprint and hurdles races, novelty races, cross country races, relay races,
penalty shoot-out, poc fada and a Pupils vs. Teachers’ event.
