All pupils in St George's NS have twice daily playground breaks.
Our playgrounds are zoned so that class levels have their own areas.
We aim to facilitate the use of PE equipment during break times. Resources include: footballs, basketballs and skipping ropes. Unfortunately we have been unable to facilitate break time PE equipment during the 2020/2021 school year due to COVID safety guidelines.
It is policy in St George's NS that on days when pupils are unable to play outdoors that each class completes an extended classroom-based physical activity break. GoNoodle is a favourite on days we cannot go outside :)
Every class completed the Active Break Every Day challenge, as a whole school initiative, from November 9th to December 4th, 2020
Every class committed to taking an Active Break every day over the four weeks. The benefits of this are improved concentration in class, improved fitness and improved long term health benefits.
We complete this challenge every year and it is always popular with our pupils!
Each class had a checklist on their door to keep track of the active breaks they were completing everyday. We liked keeping an eye on what all the classes were getting up to!
Classes used a variety of activity breaks including running breaks, dance breaks and exercise breaks. Many classes used Go Noodle for dance breaks and some classes ran laps.
Well done St George's!
During the 2020/2021 school year, every class agreed upon 3, or more, actions to decrease sedentary time.
Each class chose actions that suited them and posted a news item about being more active on their class page.
Some of the most popular actions included:
- Running laps
- Dance breaks
- Stretching in class
- Movement breaks between lessons
- GoNoodle
- Exercise when an announcement is made
Why not click into Senior Infants, 2nd Class, 4th Class or 6th Class to see some examples of what our classes have come up with!
We are delighted with our new Active School Walkway in St George's.
Our caretaker, Paul, helped us to secure the signs around the school grounds.
We had a fantastic map of the school made when Eileen, from the Irish Orienteering Association, came to our school to work with our 5th Class pupils.
This map helped us greatly when plotting out the walkway.
We are lucky to have plenty of outdoor space in St George's and plenty of varied and interesting areas.
Our wonderful Active Agents measured the length of our walkway - 650m in total.
We intend to use our walkway to 'do our talking as we're walking' for our Active Committee meetings in the future!
Every class in St George's completed the Run a Day Challenge this year.
We complete this challenge every year and we enjoy it so much that many classes continue running their laps even when the challenge is over!
Running laps is a great way to keep active during the school day.
Teachers display charts outside their classrooms to keep track of how many laps their class is running.
We love checking up on how the other classes are getting on!
We love taking part in our Run a K a Day Challenge every year :)
St George's NS were delighted to be chosen to take part in the Active Sitting pilot under the active flag initiative.
Three classes in the school are partaking in the project. We are very excited to be among the first schools to enrol in this exciting new scheme.
These balls will be offered to a group of children as an alternative to their chairs for a period of time in an effort to support their posture, fitness and core stability.
Each pod will have the opportunity to use the balls for a minimum of a week and can still use their chairs as an option.
The balls help to improve posture, strengthen core muscles and they increase concentration and alertness in class.
The reactions to the stability balls have been very positive so far and we look forward to sharing the end results with you all.
Our Active Agents worked together to come up with some ideas that teachers could use as Active Rewards in the classroom.
Our Active Agent suggestions include:
Extra yard time on a Friday for best lines
GoNoodle/Just Dance reward breaks
Active School Homework Passes - we used to give homework passes as rewards but now we give active homework passes. The pupil gets the night off written homework and gets to do active work instead!
Pupils at St George’s enjoyed an active day to mark the last day before mid-term break in October 2020.
Our senior classes showed us their scariest, socially distanced, moves to some of our favourite Halloween tunes.
Our junior classes took to the outdoors for their annual Halloween walk and had great fun keeping fit while running from vampires and ghosts.
Happy Halloween everyone!
