Active School Flag:

Our Cool Active School Slogan. The children were tasked with coming up with an Active School Slogan in September this year. We had so many great entries and it was hard to select just one but the winning slogan was “Being active is so cool… so why not be active each day in school!”

Our school is working towards the Active School Flag.   This is a record of the work that we have undertaken.

Physical Education

Aquatics

The school has regard to both the physical and mental development of each of its pupils. Believing that a healthy body promotes a healthy mind and that being able to swim is a vital safety and life skill the school arranges swimming instruction in the local swimming pool(UL Sport Arena) for each of its students (classes 2nd-6th) during the school year.

Pupils from second to sixth will attend a course of 6 swimming lessons and partake in the Primary Aquatic Water Safety (PAWS) programme. Certificates will be issued on completion of the programme stating the level the pupil has achieved. Attendance at the lessons fulfils the Aquatics Module of the PE Curriculum as laid down by the Department of Education & Skills.

We teach Land PAWS to Support the Aquatics PE Strand

The Land Paws programme is taught every year at each class level as part of the SPHE/ PE subject area under the strands units of Water Safety /Aquatics. We complete the Land Paws programme across the school in the month of May and June to ensure that the children are taught how to be safe around water especially during the holiday period. Children receive a certificate upon completion of the programme.

Athletics forms part of our PE programme

The children are introduced to athletics every year in September upon their return to school  once a week as part of each class teacher’s PE planning for a period of 6 weeks up until the mid-term break. The pupils are given every opportunity to engage in informal play throughout the course of the school day so as to improve their ability to walk, jump and throw. We have observed in recent years the need for children to learn how to walk properly mainly striking heel to toe as they walk. We put a lot of emphasis on this especially with the children in the junior end of the school early on before continuing to develop their ability in this key strand area.

Dance 

Dance in education involves the child in creating, performing and appreciating movement as a means of expression and communication. The pupils in St. Brigid’s N.S. enjoyed and appreciated dance especially during seachtain na gaeilge this year. The children in the middle and senior classes enjoyed dancing the ‘Siege of Ennis’ which gave them the experience and knowledge of the Irish culture. When creating dance, the child explores a range of body parts, body actions and body shapes. The pupils in the junior classes were encouraged to dance in response to different stimuli.

The pupils in one of the 6th classes produced a dance routine using technology namely the scratch programme. The class teacher and the pupils took this strand to the next level and produced a cool video to showcase their work. This clearly demonstrated how innovative the children could be.

We encouraged the teachers to incorporate dance into the pupils’ active school breaks each day.

Feel Good Friday Halloween

We introduced music on the yard especially on the junior yard once a week usually on a Friday in  term 1 to encourage the children in these classes along with the pupils in the special class to explore and enjoy moving their bodies in their own unique way. This was great fun and everyone enjoyed

Games

Playground games, co-operative games, Gaelic games and community games are included as part of our games programme. We have built up a network of great partnerships over the years with our local GAA clubs, the Limerick Sports Partnership (LSP), the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) and An Garda Síochana just to mention a few.

These partnerships have provided the pupils with a range of opportunities to engage and enjoy different types of games for the development of skills and understanding.

We are very fortunate to have an Astro pitch available for use on the school grounds. The children play games during their breaks each day such as Invasion games, net games, striking and fielding games, target games and shared court games as well as mini versions of games. This of course helps to encourage maximum participation.

We pride ourselves on offering the children a wide and balanced range of games throughout the school year during and also after school as part of our extensive extra-curricular programme.

Gymnastics

As a school, we chose the Gymnastics strand to be our focus this year. A member of the PE PDST Team provided support to all the class levels in January this year. This yielded great results. We recorded our progress on our shared school drive.

Outdoor and Adventure 

We launched our Active Walkway on the Feel Good Friday in March this year. This is proving to be one of the greatest initiatives that we have undertaken as part of the Active School Flag process. We are currently busy planning the outdoor and adventure orienteering lessons for all classes to enjoy in the coming month.

Fundamental Movement Skills

All teachers, using the Move Well, Move Often resource, prioritise 4 or more fundamental movement skills (FMS) for further development within their PE programme every year.

Local Partnerships

We are very fortunate to have many fantastic partnerships who work so well with the staff and pupils in delivering new and exciting initiatives for our school each year.

These partnerships provide the following: Cycle Right Safety training, IRFU rugby coaching, Athletics coaching, Cricket coaching, GAA hurling skills development including fundamental movement skills development.

The Limerick Sports Partnership provide termly training in the area of physical development for staff to share with their pupils.  

Cycle Safety Training and competitions with An Garda Síochana.

These partnerships provide the pupils with a range of opportunities to engage with and of course to enjoy each year. This also contributes positively to the children’s physical and mental wellbeing.

Cycle Right & Sprocket Rocket

As part of our Green Schools initiative for Travel this year, children in 5th and 6th Class are taking part in a 5 week cycling programme supported by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, the Road Safety Authority and Cycling Ireland.Children will take part in practical and theory based activities as well as Road Safety.Most of the programme will take place on the school grounds, however, in the final week, children will head off out on the road to put what they have learned into practice. Cycle Safety training was provided during the two separate bike weeks in this school year. The pupils in the 3rd, 4th and 5th classes benefitted greatly from this vital life skill training. Each child and staff member was given the opportunity to have their bicycle repaired during both bike weeks.

Two members of staff will be trained as cycle trainers for the school in the coming months as well. The staff members will then be able to deliver ‘Sprocket Rocket’ cycle safety training to the children across the various class levels in the school in addition to the Cycle Right training being provided for  5th class year on year.

GAA 5 Star Excellence

The GAA 5 Star initiative aims to support and recognise Primary Schools that provide pupils with 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous Gaelic Games activity per week in a manner that ensures the children will experience fun, friendship, fairness and ultimately improve their fitness. Recognition as a “GAA 5 Star Centre” is awarded to Primary Schools that undertake to deliver a programme of Gaelic Games activity that is age-appropriate and meets the developmental needs of children within the school. In order to receive recognition as a “GAA 5 Star Centre” a Primary School must provide for the flexible delivery of the following activities over the course of a school year:

  • Have a Ball
  • Fun and Run
  • Catch and Kick
  • Strike It
  • Go Games Skills Challenges

With children taking part in Mini 7’s football and hurling competitions, non-competitive football, hurling and camogie competitions, the children in St. Brigid’s National School are playing a huge amount of GAA in school.

With the assistance of frequent coaching sessions from Peter Nash, the City GAA Development Officer, the children are being introduced to many facets of GAA.

This year, the staff have put an additional focus on Gaelic games based activities as part of their after school activities programme.

GAA after school coaching with the staff, Dean Kennedy from Claughaun GAA Club and Katorina Maher from Treay Gaels GAA Club.

We continue to develop GAA each year right through the school.

Peter Nash the GAA City Development Officer provides excellent coaching in the area of the funadamental movement skills (FMS) combined with the hurling/ camogie/ gaelic football skill development for the pupils in the 1st and 2nd classes each year. A number of staff members along with a past pupil, Dean Kennedy from Claughaun GAA Club and Katorina Maher from Treay Gaels GAA Club continue this development with the pupils in the 3rd to 6th classes inclusive.

We’ve had a great GAA season so far. The U13 boys and girls competed in the Mini- 7s gaelic football and camogie blitzes in March. The U13 boys represented our school in the U13 Gaelic football blitz in April. The U13 boys and girls will be competing in the hurling and camogie blitzes in May and June.

We were very fortunate to have a number of our pupils represent our school at the city trials in Gaelic football, hurling and camogie this year. A number of our players made the city gaelic football, hurling and camogie teams. These players competed in the Primary Divisional games. Two of our players namely Alex Meaney and Aoife Toomey went onto play for Limerick in the Primary Games Gaelic Football competition held at half time against Clare in the quarter final of the Munster Senior Gaelic Football Championship.

Cricket

The 6th class pupils developed their cricket skills, with Arsalan Khalid through the schools cricket development programme provided in partnership with the LSP.

Santa Dash

The whole school took part in a Santa Dash. We had great fun in our Christmas hats and jumpers!

Active Break Challenge

For four weeks in November, each class took part in the active break challenge. We committed to doing one active break each day. We did lots of different activities from Fyffe’s Fit Squad exercises/ challenges to dancing breaks to Bizzy Breaks to running laps around the pitch. Check out some of our pictures below.