Rith agus spraoi, go maith do do chroí.
- Active schools slogan
Physical Education
In our school, all classes are taught 5 out of the 6 strands from the P.E curriculum each year. The six strands of the curriculum include: dance, games, athletics, aquatics, outdoor and adventure and gymnastics. P.E is allocated 1 hour teaching time over the week and discretionary time is also used towards P.E.
Teacher Planning and resources
In line with our priority strand, gymnastics, all class groups have been given a copy of the PSSI lesson plans for gymnastics to teach at their class level. There are also warm-up activities and games stuck up on the walls of the PE hall for all to use. We have created a P.E storage area also in the hall for teachers to share notes and ideas for each of the strands.
P.E Equipment
We have updated our P.E store room with new equipment this year to help teachers in delivering the P.E curriculum, with a focus particularly on gymnastics and games. One of the roles of our Active Schools Committee is to maintain the store room and to tidy and organize the equipment.
PDST physical literacy course for teachers
As a whole staff, we attended 'An introduction to Physical Literacy and Fundamental Movement skills'. This was a PDST course ran by Cathal Ruane in Portarlington. They focused on teaching fundamental movement skills and how they should be incorporated into the teaching of all strands. We are focusing on Gymnastics as our priority strand and we got a lot of ideas on how to teach various movements and the importance of doing so, which is key to the gymnastics strand. The course recommended the Move Well Move often resource which we now have a copy in our school.
Gymnastics
This year we have prioritised the strand of Gymnastics. We have scheduled to teach it during January as it is mainly indoors and also we had all of our resources in place and CPD notes shared. We focused on the strand units of Movement and Understanding and Appreciation of Gymnastics. The PSSI lesson plans proved to be very useful to all teachers and also we had access to very good gym mats to facilitate our activities.
Dance
Dance is taught between February and March. As a staff we agreed on these months as it leads into Seactain na Gaeilge and we have a whole school ceilí before St.Patrick's weekend. Both strands of Exploration, creation and performance of dance and understanding and appreciation of dance are covered. The PDST website and PSSI lesson plans are very useful resources when planning these lessons.
Games
We teach a wide range of games but also this year teachers have focused on fundamental movement skills most suitable for games and including the teaching of these skills in their lessons. These skills are dodging, side-stepping, catching, throwing, kicking, striking with the hand and striking with an implement. The Move well Move often resource provided us with great resources in doing this. Across the classes students participate in a wide variety of games during PE lessons. These include: Basketball, Badminton, Benchball, Dodgeball, Olympic handball, Hockey, Rounders and Gaelic Football and Hurling/Camogie.
Outdoor and Adventure
Outdoor and adventure is taught under the strands of walking, orienteering, outdoor challenges and understanding and appreciation of outdoor and adventure activities. The Active School walkway we set up in our school helped out hugely in having a route on the school grounds for walking activities but also for an orienteering track as each of the placards had orienteering codes at the bottom. Children also made use of local amenities when engaging with their walking activities.
Athletics
Athletics is taught under the strands of running, jumping and throwing and Understanding and appreciation of athletics. Athletics is taught either in September or else during the summer months when we can use the school field. This a very popular strand in our school. The children take part in relay races, short and long distance running, hurdles and sprinting. Teachers focus on the fundamental movement skills of running, jumping and throwing through Athletics. The Move Well Move Often resource is a very valuable topic in teaching this.