Dare to Believe - Olympic Movement Break Challenge

On the 13th of November, each class in St Paul's began the Olympic Movement break challenge.  This challenge consists of 5 -6 minute videos every day, each hosted by a Team Ireland Olympic Hopeful athlete.  Lots of different sporting activities are represented including rugby, running and even break dancing! The children are really enjoying the challenge.

Halloween PE lessons

We tried out some new seasonal games this Halloween: Zombie Tag and Trick or Treat. As you can see, the children had great fun with these games.

Jingle Bell Jog

We ran our annual Jingle Bell Jog on the 18th of December. Unfortunately the field was too wet to use so we ran around both yards and the perimeter of the senior school also. It was super for burning off some extra energy!

Run Around Europe Challenge

We were a day late beginning our Run Around Europe Challenge as the last part of our Walkway was still being built. It is ready to go now and everyone is enjoying being able to run the whole way around the pitch without getting wet runners and socks!
By the end of our first week we have run 854kms! All the way to Paris and beyond.
The weather wasn't doing us very many favours over the four weeks unfortunately but we did our very best. We went out on Lá Glás and for our last day of the challenge we went over to O'Toole's and cheered each other on as we did our laps around the astro pitches there. 

Easter Egg Hunt

On Thursday the 21st of March, the children had a surprise visitor to the school. There was great excitement when the children went out to the yard to discover the Easter Bunny!  He had spilled his eggs all over the yard and needed a lot of help picking them up. When the children returned to their class, they were rewarded for their efforts with an Easter egg of their own to bring home. Many thanks to the Parent's Association for organising this.

Yard Equipment and Playground Leaders.

Our Playground Leaders are responsible for bringing yard equipment in and out of yard each day. They bring out, hoops, scoops, skipping ropes and soft balls. 
They organise basketball and games of donkey for the younger boys and girls. During yard, the children are also permitted to run laps of the Active Walkway if that like.
​More pictures of the Active Committee can be viewed by clicking here.

Learning on the Move - Active Walkway

We first got Active Walkway signs last spring and they were put up around the perimeter of the school. Unfortunately, by the time that we had returned after the summer, many of them had been removed. At the point that we decided to build a path along the side of the pitch, we had no signs along the whole length of the pitch. When these were replaced, our lovely caretaker, Robert, devised a way of attaching the signs to broom handles and securing them in cones, These are kept in one of the classrooms and members of the Active Committee move them in and out as needed. 
Wooden pegs were glued to each Walkway sign so that different tasks/instructions can be displayed. The Walkway has been used for a variety of learning activities: general knowledge quizes, orienteering, music quiz, gaelige lesson, maths, movement, wellbeing.

Walkway Map

Our Active Walkway mainly spans the perimeter of the pitch and yard 1. The sign posts 1-6 and 12-14 are fixed in place and number 6-11 are stored in the school building and taken in and out as needed. The addition of our new pathway means that we are able to access the walkway even on days that the grass is wet. This had been a bit of a problem for us before.