Active Schools

We raised our First Active Schools Flag (ASF) on 1st October 2021.

We held an outdoor assembly with Mr. Shorten. This was to recognise the commitment the children and the Active Schools Committee made to staying active, at school and at home over the last two years. We also handed over to the new Committee.

The pupils and staff are currently working towards renewing our flag.

An Active school is one that strives to achieve a physically educated and physically active school community. The process aims to get more schools, more active, more often.

For us to achieve the ASF renewal status, we have to satisfy four criteria which are listed below

Physical Education
Physical Activity
Sports Partnerships
Active School Week

Physical Education

Taunagh N.S. is committed to providing high-quality Physical Education to all pupils. All classes receive 60 minutes of formal PE lessons each week.

Children wear their PE tracksuit and runners for PE days.

In Taunagh N.S, where possible, we take part in all six strands of the Primary Physical Education Curriculum:

Gymnastics
Outdoor and Adventure
Games
Athletics
Aquatics
Dance

In our school, all PE activities are carefully planned and differentiated so that they are accessible to all pupils. The PSSI lesson plans and the ‘Move Well, Move Often’ resources are used by teachers to guide their delivery of the Primary PE Curriculum. Pupil’s progress and achievements in PE is discussed with parents at PT meetings and this subject is also included in our annual school report.

Fundamental Movement Skills

Fundamental movement skills are the basic building blocks of movement and are an essential part of everyday life and recreational activity. It is only when these skills are mastered that a child can go on to develop specialised movement skills, which will allow them to reach their potential in sports-specific endeavours.

We introduced the Move Well, Move Often Programme to teach the Fundamental Movement Skills to all pupils. Since January 2020, all classes have been taught the same strand and Fundamental Movement Skill. This will allow for the sharing of resources and ideas among staff and ensure that an equal amount of time is given to each strand. This year we are working on the following skills: Running and Walking.

Aside from PE lessons, we have focused on these fundamental skills throughout the year with different initiatives:

Running- Run Around Ireland and Run Around Europe Challenge

Walking- Active Walkway lessons and class walks in our locality.

Athletics

Aquatics

Pupils from 2nd -6th classes also take part in Aquatics, having swimming lessons in Aura Leisure Centre in Carrick-on-Shannon. (2019)

Land Paws lessons 2021

LAND PAWS

All students in the Junior Room completed The Land PAWS (Primary Aquatics Water Safety) water safety programme. All students received a PAWS certificate as a reward for completing the programme.

Dance

(2019, 2020, 2021)

December 2020

Making Shapes in PE ( December 2020)

Outdoor and Adventure

We were very excited to get a tour of Coopershill House and grounds in Riverstown.

Orienteering with Sara

PE Equipment

Our targeting of the Active School Flag has required an audit of our PE programme.

This is the storeroom before the audit.

P.E Equipment Audit

Store Room 2020-2021 (Covid -19 compliant)

Active School Flag Website: www.activeschoolflag.ie

Active School Committee.

Our Active Schools Committee members are:

The Committee members

A key part of the ASF process is finding ways to encourage less active children to ENJOY physical activity more. Therefore, it is essential that the voice of less active children is represented alongside the voice of more active children on the ASF Committee.

Teachers use a variety of resources to guide them in delivering quality PE lessons. PSSI Lesson Plans are widely used in our school and we focused on the Athletics strand for the school year 2019/2020. We decided to focus on the Dance strand of the PE curriculum for the year September 2020 – June 2021.

Physical Activity

Here are some of the activities the Active Flag Committee organised to help all classes get more active. Children can share more suggestions with the Committee using the Suggestion Boxes in each classroom.

Active Special Annual Events

Maths Week

Students enjoyed completing Maths Trails during Maths Week this year.

Halloween

The ASF Committee organised a Spooktacular Disco at Halloween (2019 & 2020), which were a great success. Well Done! See our Active Halloween videos on this page.

Christmas

Students enjoyed “The Twelve Days of Fit – mas” challenge in the lead up to Christmas. It was a great break from our school work that all the students looked forward to. See videos below.

Easter

An Easter Egg hunt was organised on the last day of term this year. The children had great fun finding all the eggs.

2019

October 2020

December 2019

December 2020

Movement Breaks:

10@10 – we took part in rte10@10 on designated days throughout January 2020.

Teachers frequently use Go Noodles, 10@10 or other movement breaks for their students.

Cross Curricular Subjects

Autumn Nature Walk – where the children used a Autumn checklist to find lots of different things related to Spring outside.

Spring walk – where the children used a Spring checklist to find lots of different things related to Spring outside.

Do Your Talking As You Are Walking

To ensure that children stay active during break times, children are encouraged to ‘Do your Talking as You are Walking’. This way the children can chat and stay active at the same time. The Active School Committee and teachers encourage students on the yard to be as active as possible.

Active Homework

Active Lines

We completed the ‘Active Lines’ initiative. The Active Committee members lead the pupils with exercises daily while the students lined up after break times. The pupils particularly enjoyed the squats and windmills and improved their fitness. The committee came up with the movements/activities for each day and a rota was displayed on the Active Flag board.

Playground Leaders – pupils from 5th-6th classes were our Playground Leaders (2019-2020). They gave up two lunch breaks per week to play games with the Junior Classes, ensuring they were active and happy throughout break time.

Active Break Every Day challenge – We did this as a whole school initiative over a period of four weeks from 11th November – 6th December 2019.

Daily Mile Challenge – The children completed a daily mile as part of the running break during our active break every day challenge.

Active Flag Committee – Our Active Flag Committee (AFC) is combined with our Pupil Voice Committee this year. On the AFC, pupils are given various roles and tasks to carry out throughout the school year such as making announcements to the classrooms on various initiatives, designing posters for the school, carrying out surveys and checking the suggestion box. Our pupils play a very important role in organising and delivering our Active Flag initiatives.
Active School Walkway – We have a designated walkway around the grounds of our school. One lap of the walkway is 1 kilometre. Thank you to Ms. McMahon for making this video.

Active Breaks – All classes take part in active breaks throughout the school day. This includes Go-Noodle and a variety of classroom movement ideas. On a wet day, if pupils cannot go outside at break time, extra time will be given to movement breaks in the classroom.

Run Around Ireland Challenge 2021– We have completed our Run Around Ireland Challenge. We started this challenge on March 22nd 2021. The junior room have chosen Benbulben, Sliabh Liag and The Blarney Stone as their Irish Landmarks to visit. We have visited Benbulben and Sliabh Liag, We almost reached Blarney Stone. We ran 203km in total. See our Run Around Ireland Challenge on our Active Flag noticeboard.

Run Around Europe Challenge(2024)

Partnerships

Shamrock Gaels GAA – we are developing a stronger school-club link with our local GAA club. Many of our pupils play at under age levels. We have 12 week coaching sessions with David, a member of Shamrock Gaels GAA, each spring term. We are very fortunate to have a lovely park and astro turf pitch near the school, which we can use when to weather is good. See Active Week Videos below for more photos.

2024 photos

Previous years

Well done to the boys and girls who represented our school so well and the GAAmigos Skills Competition in February 2020.

We received the Fair Play Award from Cumann na mBunscoil, Sligo.

Sligo Sport Partnership –

Orienteering with Sara (January 2024)

Multi-Sport with Sara

Orienteering with Mr. Barrett (March 2020)

Gymnastics with Kate Frahill (April/May 2021)

- ASF Slogan: The ASF Committee organised an ASF Slogan competition. Well done all who participated.

Active School Club Survey We completed an Active Schools Club Survey with the Senior Room pupils using Microsoft Teams. The clubs with the most pupils are GAA and Soccer.

Pupil Questionnaire:
Parent Questionnaire We asked the parents to complete a short questionnaire using Microsoft Teams. You can see from the results that most children enjoy P.E., with Outdoor & Adventure being the most popular.

Active HOME Week (April 27th – May 3rd) 2020

The aim of this initiative was to motivate young people to keep active at home by trying out NEW activities, taking on CHALLENGES and having FUN with family activities. To complete the challenge the children had to find four different ways of being active every day, making sure that this adds up to 60 minutes, or more, of physical activity. All members of the family were encouraged, #Together, to take on the challenge.

Active Home Week 2020