Physical Activity | Kilrossanty National School

September/October

Our first half term in school was a very busy and active one indeed! All children from 3rd -6th class were involved in Gaelic football training every Wednesday with Ger Walsh (from our local Kilrossanty GAA
club) & Mrs. Flynn. This training will continue after the mid-term break also!

As well as this; our girls from 3rd -6th class took part in Gaelic football lunchtime leagues every
Tuesday and Thursday at big lunch. The girls were divided up into four teams with each team playing each other & scores being kept. The semi-final and final of this league will take place after the mid-term break and then the boys league will begin after that!

Our school had a very active Maths Week with all classes partaking in active maths trails outside around the school grounds. The children really enjoyed finding 2-D/3-D shapes, parallel lines, estimating and measuring distances, and timing each other running laps of the pitch!

#FeelGoodFriday

Our very first #FeelgoodFriday was named ‘Freaky Friday’ by our Active Flag committee as it fell on the day of the Halloween holidays! Everyone dressed up with an item of Halloween clothing and we played spooky music over a loudspeaker in the yard on both break times. It brought such a fun and feel-good atmosphere to the playground!

Our main ‘Freaky Friday’ event was an active hour with 5 spooky activities which each class spent 10-15 mins at before rotating. These activities included; Spooky Soccer, Pumpkin Patch circuits, Musical Monster mats, Pumpkin toss relay and a Skeleton shuttle run!

Each class from Junior Infants-6th took part in every activity and there were a lot of happy but tired spooky looking children waiting to be collected come home time!!

November/December

Our 4 weeks of ‘Active Break Every Day’ began on the 8th of November and continued right into the first week of December. Each child kept an ‘Active Break tracker’ in their homework diary so they could tick off what type of activity break they completed each day. Every child from infants up to 6th class took part in this initiative with a big variety of activity breaks going on throughout the school. On the spot exercise breaks, dance routines and running/jogging/walking a few laps of our active walkway were some of the most popular options!! Our Active Flag committee had a very important role to play in these active breaks as they demonstrated and led the exercises in their own classrooms.

During November we also signed up for the ‘Fyffe’s Fit Squad’ initiative. This is a nationwide school-based program that encourages children and their teachers to take part in movement/activity breaks every day. David Gillick, Phil Healy and Kelly Harrington are all involved in the online tutorials which take the children through some very up-tempo workouts! The program continues weekly until April and all classes are continuing to engage in it at least once per week.

League Final Winners

Well done to the winners of the girls football league final which was played in November. It was a tough game with some great performances. Our boys league has now begun and will continue into the New Year.

12 days of ‘Fitmas!’

For the last 2 weeks of school before the Christmas holidays our whole school took part in the 12 days of Fitmas challenge. For this challenge after lunch everyday all the children lined up in their class lines. The active flag committee stood on the steps in front of the rest of the children and brought them through a series of on the spot exercises counting down from 12 to 0, eg; 12 jumping jacks, 11 high knees, 10 squats, etc!

#FeelGoodFriday

Our December #feelgoodfriday was a special one as we were also raising money for a very important cause. Our Active Flag committee along with our staff organized a whole school ‘Santa Dash’ with every child running a 1 mile run on the road outside our school. The route brought us up half a mile to the old school building where Mrs Dunwoody our principal was there to stop traffic and turn us around to make our way back to the school again! The children all dressed in Santa hats and jumpers for the occasion and brought in 2euro each to donate to the Lions Club Christmas appeal. Everyone really enjoyed the run and the locals thought it was quite a sight to see so many happy children running up the county roads dressed in red bright and early in the morning!! Afterwards we played Christmas music during both break times out in the yard which helped everyone to get into the Christmas spirit!!

January/February

Every class is making a huge effort to ensure that extra physical activity is remaining part of their every school day, using various busy breaks & action songs, the Daily Mile, lollipop stick activities and more to ensure extra movement breaks between lessons.

We took on a ‘Climb the Heights’ challenge in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th class during the month of February. All children were encouraged to bring their skipping ropes to school each day and skip at every opportunity they got! Many children brought their ropes out to the playground at both break times and the class teachers took their classes for skipping active breaks at various times during each day. Every skip completed equaled 1 meter and every child had a challenge tracker sheet in their homework diaries to keep note of how many skips completed both at home and in school each day. These skips were added up in order to reach the peaks of different mountains around Europe. Everyone loved getting involved in this challenge, trying to beat their skips from the day before and see how many mountain tops they could reach before the end of the month!

#FeelGoodFriday

Our first #FeelGoodFriday took place on the 28th January with a focus on ‘Skipping in the New Year!’ Every child brought their own skipping rope to school and used them in the playground at both break times to play skipping games with their friends. Each teacher also played various skipping games with their classes throughout the day. ‘Jump the River’, ‘Cat and Mouse’, skipping relays, partner and group skipping were some of the biggest hits! We played music in the yard for both break times as we do every ‘feel good Friday’ & this is proving to be a huge hit with staff & children alike!

Our Gaelic Football Lunchtime leagues resumed at the end of January. It was the boys turn to finish out their league which had begun before Christmas. There were some very competitive and enjoyable games played. The final was held on the week of the mid-term. Well done Team A who played a great game and won the final match!

Our Playground leaders took on their very important roles in February after completing their training in January. Four of our 6th class are on the rota each day; two for the infant yard and two for 1st and 2nd class. They play warm up games such as ‘traffic lights’ and ‘move like the animals’ with the children in their group before moving onto games such as; musical statues, lifesaver tag, cups and saucers, go grab it and spot hop! These games have all been taken from the PDST Move Well Move Often Manuals so are ensuring that are younger pupils are getting extra opportunities to practice their FMS while also having fun with their friends! The Playground Leaders initiative has been a great success so far. Our current rota will continue until the end of march, at which stage new games will be introduced.

#FeelWellWednesday

As our ‘Feel Good Friday’ for February took place on a Wednesday due to the mid-term break, one of our pupils came up with the name ‘Feel Well Wednesday’! This was very appropriate as the day centered around mindfulness through physical activity! Every class was very fortunate to have a yoga session with yogi Ciara. She took the class through different yoga poses and stretches such as ‘downward dog’, ‘the butterfly’, ‘cat cow’ and ‘the tree’. The children also engaged in some meditation to music. It was a really nice way to kick off our mid-term break!

March/April

March was a busy month full of whole school physical activity challenges. Our playground leaders kept up their great work engaging with infants-2nd class every small break playing FMS games and also incorporating Irish dance as a link to our PE lessons and Seachtain na Gaeilge.

Every class spoke about the importance of being active for at least 60 mins a day and what this entails (how you come to school, what you do in the yard at break time, active breaks, PE, training for sports etc after school, walks with family, etc) We pledged to be active for at least 60 mins everyday and tracked our times for 2 weeks to see were we reaching our targets!

We also decided to have PE homework every night for the 3 weeks before Easter to help us achieve our 60 mins/day. Every child stuck an Active Homework Challenge Chart into their homework diaries, they chose one activity (or more!) to complete each evening and coloured in the box they completed. Everyone really enjoyed taking part in the challenge!

March saw the return of the Cumann na mBunscoil GAA competitions. Our girls and boys had been training hard since the beginning of the school year in anticipation for this and there was so much excitement at heading off to a school game after over 2 years of no matches. Our group Gaelic football blitz was held in mid-March. Both our girls and boys teams qualified for the semi finals with our girls team topping their group!

#FeelGoodFriday

We held our #FeelGoodFriday for March on the 25th of the month. In line with the Active Schools Program the day was dedicated to launching our new and improved Active Walkway on our school grounds. We have had and used our Active Walkway for a number of years now but this year it has gotten a revamp with new signage and a well marked out track. Each class has been making great use of the walkway when weather allows. Using it during lunch time for ‘Do your talking while your walking’ and during class time for active breaks, the Daily Mile and more!

As part of our ‘Feel Good Friday’ each class group took part in a variety of Active Walkway orienteering challenges around the route. These included Active Flags, Active Clocks, Active Colours and Patterns, Active Handwriting and more! All children really enjoyed the challenges and they will be a great resource for ongoing use when engaging in the Outdoor and Adventure PE strand.

Cumann na mBunscoil Girls Western Football Final

A huge congratulations and well done to our girls gaelic football team who won their Western Football Final against Ardmore on the 2/4/22. It was a very tough game and the girls showed great skill, determination and super attitude to win by a 1 point margin making it a very exciting game for the supporters!

We are so proud of them!!

May/June

We kicked off our 'Run Around Ireland' Challenge in May for a period of 4 weeks. Every class used our Active Walkway each day to run/jog/walk as many laps as they can in order to help their class reach some famous landmarks around Ireland such as 'The Spire', 'The Giant's Causeway', 'Malin Head', 'Mizen Head' and 'Kilkenny Castle' to name but a few! Ms Smith's 4th and 5th class but a great effort into finding the correct distances from our school to each of these places using Google Maps and they designed a great poster displaying them for our ASF display board.

All classes really enjoyed the challenge and felt a great sense of accomplishment when they could tick off certain locations and choose new ones to aim towards next!

We began hurling and camogie training at the start of May in preparation for our Cumann na mBunscoil competitions. Ger Walsh takes our boys every Wednesday afternoon while Mrs Flynn trains the girls. Any children that do not wish to take part do fun circuits/skipping activities/basketball and other games with Mrs Kavanagh and Ms Smith.

Our lunchtime hurling and camogie leagues also kicked off in May and will continue on into the final weeks of the school year to see who will be crowned league champions for 2022!!

BIKE WEEK 2022!

We were very fortunate to be able to use a set of balance bikes for the duration of bike week this year. The bikes were kindly loaned to us from Waterford Sports Partnership who we try to link in with every year for various sporting initiatives. Our infant classes are having a great time practicing their cycling skills on the bikes while our older classes are learning about bike safety and maintenance.