This year, we are working towards getting an Active Schools Flag for our school. The aim of the Active Schools Flag is to encourage schools to be more active, more often. It links in with all of the work we are doing throughout the year on Healthy Living – being active, getting exercise, taking care of our minds and bodies.
Below are some of the ways and initiatives we have ran over the year in order to achieve our goal to become a more active school!
Active flag committee:
Our active flag committee made up of pupils from the middle and senior room play a very important role in our effort for becoming more active as a school community. They come up with great ideas and initiatives that we can run throughout the year.
Active flag slogan:
The children of Ballyfacey National school were great when we ran a competition in search of our active school slogan. We had some great posters and slogans from all classes which made it a really hard choice.
Playground leaders:
Each Thursday playground leaders from the middle and senior room work together in order to zone the back of our school yard into different areas so that children can try out new sports/skills. It was always a big hit every week with lots of children joining in! Below are a selection of pictures of the playground leaders at work!
Do your talking while you’re walking!
As part of the active school flag programme, we have focused on the motto ” Do your talking while you’re walking”. Children are encouraged to have their conversations with each other while walking around rather than sitting or standing in the yard. So keep on walking while you are talking!!
Busy breaks!
In each of the 3 rooms of the school the children engage in busy breaks. It is important to encourage children to have active breaks throughout the day. In keeping with the active flags on wet break days these active/busy breaks are increased through websites such as go noodle and cosmic yoga for kids. The children love these and it increases their concentration in school work as a result. Below are some of our pupils getting active during learning time.
Active initiatives:
Through out the school year we have ran many active inspired initiatives to help pupils get up and move more. The active committee have been great at making different feasts and festivals such as Halloween and Christmas more active. Below are some of the ideas and initiatives that have been ran. We have run spooky obstacle courses, fit February including an exercise each day, March madness and ceilis for St.Patricks day tying into the strand of dance.
Active leaders:
We encouraged any pupil who did sports or activities outside school to bring their talents and knowledge to school in order to teach others. Some brought their athletics skills others brought yoga poses! All the other students really enjoyed learning from their peers.
Run around Europe challenge:
Each room undertook a different site to cover the equivalent distance to in a European city. The junior room “ran” to Big Ben, the middle room did the Eiffel, the senior room did the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Active homework:
The children of Ballyfacey National school partake in active homework throughout the school year. Each day a student from the active committee or teacher reminds the children of the active homework that night. We use the super troopers book to get our ideas. As part of active week children are given active homework every night. Below is a sheet the children get with some ideas for active homework during active schools week. The active committee and teachers go through these ideas with pupils.
Move well move often:
Two members of our staff have participated in Move Well Move Often workshops and have informed other members of staff of its importance to the PE curriculum. It focuses on developing the 15 fundamental movement skills of • walking, running, hopping, skipping, jumping for height, jumping for distance, dodging, side stepping, balancing, landing, catching, throwing, kicking, striking with the hand and striking with an implement. Each of the mainstream class teachers has the handbook relevant to each class. Each teacher chooses skills to focus on which will tie in with the strand of PE being covered in that month.
