Physical Activity

Schools wishing to achieve the Active School Flag begin the process by self-evaluating their current provision across 3 areas:
Physical Education,
Physical Activity
and Partnerships.

Take a look at some examples of physical activity in our school.

Each class commits to an ACTIVE BREAK every day: running, dancing, exercising.

Many classes run ‘The Daily Mile’.

Each class knows that physical activity helps us to

Stay healthy

Concentrate & focus

Have fun.

Maths Week – Maths Trails

Here are Senior Infants looking for shapes and measuring with Baby Steps and Giant Steps in the school yard.

A 6th Class Tradition

6th Class went on their annual hike in Glendalough. This is a challenging 9km hike over challenging terrain.

Ella B wrote: ‘The day before our trip was the day, Mr. Dodd filled us with lots of information that really helped along the trip, about U-shaped valleys are created by glaciers and V-shaped valleys are created by rivers and lots more useful information. Learning about Glendalough was great. I always thought I knew everything there is to know about Glendalough but was wrong. I never knew all this amazing information
The next day was the day of the nine km walk in Glendalough. I was so excited for this walk to see the amazing views and the landscapes. We arrived at our destination, we heard oh so much about and began one of the longest walks I had ever done. First we started with this long flight of wooden stairs. I was so slow walking up the stair but that amazing waterfall made it worth it. I just wished that I had brought my camera with me.
But after those stairs we started with a long, steep hill. Compared to the stairs it wasn’t that long.After what felt like a couple of minutes we reached the top of the hill, but I thought it was over and we could all go home. But no. I was wrong again. We had to start the over six hundred step board walk.
After six hundred steps of mud we finally reached our half way point for lunch and sweets. With a full tummy, we started heading back through the Miners Village.
It was really fun and historic while it lasted. Anyway I hope Mr. Dodd brings us on more amazing school trips just like this one. Thank you Mr. Dodd.’

You can read some more accounts of their trip HERE

BIG NEWS: The SCHOOL YARD has been extended. It is estimated that the area of the yard has been increased by 60 per cent. As a result, the children enjoy a full 30 minutes of play time instead of the 15 minutes they have had to date.

The new Junior Infants from Ms. Smith’s Junior Infants drew pictures of what they enjoy in school. In this slideshow you will see that PE and playing games like Fruitbowl, Hide and Seek and skipping in the yard get plenty of mentions in the pictures they drew. The new yard has contributed to these opportunities for the children in this school.

Skipping Rhymes

Hollie, Ava, Jessica, Holly and Orla made up a skipping rhyme in Phonics Class. They used words from their word boxes to help them. It helped them with finding and spelling rhyming words too.:

‘Ava saw an elf,

Holly saw an imp.

Orla went to the Zoo

and saw a baby chimp.

Jessie had a nap.

Lottie had a tan.

Who can count to ten?

Holly says ‘I can!’

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

SPONSORED WALK

A huge thank you to the children, parents and sponsors for making our first Sponsored Walk a day to remember. It was a lovely day, the sun was shining, and the atmosphere was electric. The senior classes even managed to walk over 5km. Thank you for all your help with this project. We are so lucky to have such committed and supportive parents.

Niamh Coyle, Chairperson, Parents’ Association.

Laura E, wrote a poem about a sport she enjoys. Can you guess what it is?

The whistling of the coaches,

The beeping of the buzzer,

The splashing of the water,

The cheering of the crowd,

The yawning of tired parents,

The sipping of the coffee.

The rubbing of the towels,

The packing of leaving people,

Yes it is … swimming. Laura was writing about a swimming gala.

Max Garçia viaCompfight

SPORT IN GREYSTONES

Greystones is a seaside town,

so there are lots of water sports to choose from.

Below are a list of sports that are played in Greystones.

We have written them more in alphabetical order

rather than in order of popularity:

Athletics, badminton, baseball, cricket,

cycling (and mountain bike riding),

Gaelic Games are very important in Ireland;

They include Gaelic Football,

hurling (played with a wooden stick and small ball),

Photo Credit: Sean Ryan via Compfight

Camogie is hurling for girls.

There is also golf, lawn bowling, rugby, soccer,

skateboarding and tennis.

Because Greystones is beside the sea there are lots of

Water Sports: angling, diving, kayaking,

rowing, swimming, sailing and wind-surfing.

People also enjoy hill walking,

jogging, running and hiking.

We know that Gaelic Games, soccer, rugby, swimming,

tennis and basketball

are very popular among the students in the school.

Photo Credit: William Murphy via Compfight

People support Gaelic games including Gaelic Football.

Our local Gaelic Club is called Éire Óg.

We are also very proud of Wicklow, our county team.

There are fifteen members on a Gaelic Football team

and they are allowed use their hands to strike the ball.

Strangely though people who follow soccer support

the English soccer teams more than our Irish ones.

Many children support Manchester United and Liverpool.

Both of those are English teams.

Our local soccer team is called Greystones United.

ANNUAL 6th CLASS vs TEACHERS BASKETBALL MATCH

The 6th Classes took on the teachers in a much anticipated end of year basketball match on Tuesday 26th June. It was a close and very exciting game with the teachers eventually snatching victory with 22 points to 14 points

BASKETBALL FINAL 2018

We had another amazing league final this year. The Washington Wizards and San Antonio Spurs played each other on Friday 15th of June. It was a very exciting match. 1st class to 6th class went out to watch the match and they really enjoyed it. Well done to all the boys and girls who played. They showed their great basketball skills and really impressed all the spectators.

THE DAILY MILE

For the remainder of the Summer Term, 3rd Class, Room 14 will be running for fifteen minutes every day. This initiative to improve the health and fitness of school children was started in Scotland. You can read more about it HERE

BASKETBALL LEAGUE

This years Basketball League will start on Monday 30th April. As always the emphasis is on FUN and the basketball coaches love to see the children displaying the skills they have been learning and enjoying themselves while doing so. The children will find out what teams they are on on Wednesday 25th April. All matches are attached here and will also be stuck up on the windows of the hall. Please don’t ring the office about these matches as we have more than 130 students involved in the league and that would mean a lot of phone calls! Thank you for your cooperation.

basketball 2018

Mini Me Yoga

The junior infants children in Room 1 and Room 3 had their first Mini Me Yoga class just before the Easter holidays. They were very good at listening and trying out the new yoga class. They sent out all their positive energy to the people they know and love. They also shook out all the negative energy in their positive and particularly enjoyed the bit where they got to go ‘crazy’ at the end! A few children got to pick one of the Magick Yoga Cards and they tried out a few of their new yoga poses. For example, they tried ‘tickle toes’, ‘sun pose’ and the ‘warrior pose’. They got to relax at the end and meditate. They will be trying it again after Easter and trying out a few new poses. Watch out for some photos soon.

Active Board Games

Some of the children in Ms. Devine’s class and Ms. Purcell’s class designed board games to help us to have fun while being active. They made the games pretty hard. You can see some of these games on the Active School noticeboard in the hall. Be prepared for some sit ups, jumping jacks, etc. when you play these games.

10@10

We are doing 10@10 starting January 22^nd at 10am every Monday to Friday for the next three weeks. You can see the videos we are using from RTÉjr HERE.

Jingle Jog Relay

Well done and thank you to Ms Woodcock and the Student Council/Active School Committee for organising the Jingle Jog today, Thursday 21st December. All of the children wore their Christmas jumpers and each class took their turn running some laps of the yard. The student council arranged for the Santa hat to be passed from class to class and in the end the whole school ran a whopping 8km. Take a look at the slideshow to see how much fun we had. Well done to all involved.

At the end of Term 1, Third class have clocked up two hours twenty minutes running laps since November 13th.

Exercising indoors with ‘Go Noodle‘

On days where the weather is so wintry that we cannot go outside to exercise we use ‘Go Noodle’ to exercise indoors.

‘GoNoodle makes earning minutes of healthy activity a game that your kids play together. Motivate kids to stay active.’

You can read more about ‘Go Noodle’ HERE

Walks in the Neighbourhood – A loop from the school to The Garda Station and along the coast by St. David’s

Running a Marathon

As a running initiative, 3rd Class, Room 14 are running a marathon, bit by bit. We asked advice and Ms. Hughes told us that she had used the Map My Run app. and had found out that if you run 16 times around the basketball court, it is equal to one kilometre. We took five minutes to run today. We all ran at our own pace. We REALLY enjoyed this. We are going to do this every day between now and Christmas. We are going to keep track of how many circuits of the basketball court we run. Today we learned that it is important not to cut corners. We hope to have run a marathon which is 42 kilometres or 26.2 miles over time.

Lots of students are cycling to school in the fine September weather.

Mr Meaney and the boys and girls in first class in Room 5 have started the Super Troopers programme. Each child has an activity journal and will be doing active homework. This will all be logged in their journals. Hopefully all of the family will get involved too.

Check out Super Troopers website https://supertroopers.ie/family-area/ for more information.

Annual Teacher V Student Basketball Match

Basketball League 2017

We are very excited to start our annual Basketball League. This year it starts on Tuesday May 2nd. Please click here, basketball 2017, to see the schedule of matches. We expect excellent behaviour and look forward to seeing the 4th, 5th and 6th class boys and girls show us the amazing basketball skills they have been practising all year. Good luck everyone!

Skipping Demonstration

Ms Donnelly’s 4th class spent a lot of time practising and perfecting their skipping routine and they performed it for a few classes. Some other classes will have the pleasure of watching this routing during Active School Week.

Lenten Activities

Lots of activity going on with the children in room 14. It’s great to hear all of the things they are trying out at home. Well done 3rd class.

Easter Fun

Infants wanted to get active as they prepared for Easter. We decided to have an Egg and Spoon Race. Luckily, we used wooden eggs as it was quite hard to keep them on the spoon. As you can see from the slideshow the eggs kept falling off! On Friday the Easter Bunny visited room 2 and room 3 and we had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. It was so much fun.

Tired but happy; Room 2 in the back yard after their Easter Egg Hunt

Walks in the neighbourhood
Junior Infants have been learning about the Post Office in Aistear. We had so much fun. We designed our own stamps, made postcards, pretended we were working in a post office, etc. We decided to post some REAL letters to our families. We wrote the letters, put on the stamps and put the letters into the envelopes. Click below to see:

On Thursday 16th March we walked to the post office and posted our letters. We can’t wait to receive our letters from the postman!!

Green Schools – We find that walking, scooting or cycling to school on Wednesdays (WOW days) tie in with working towards our Active School Flag. You can read more about this HERE
Some classes are doing a Lent Exercise Challenge

Running laps with the Infant classes

Building extra activity into our school day. Teachers report that the students return to academic work after exercise, energised, motivated and with better focus and concentration.

Ms. Ryan and her Green School Committee are trying to encourage students to walk, cycle or scoot to school, especially on Wednesdays. Every class has been given a grid and they will fill in how many people walked, cycled or scooted to school. Take a look at the link to see the grid and please make an extra effort on Wednesdays to walk, cycle or scoot.
‘It’s super cool to bí ag siúl. Be wise and exercise’.
Walk on Wednesdays

The whole school took part in Operation Transformation’s 10@10 on February 10th 2017.

Ms Hughes’ class had lots of fun today taking part in 10@10.

We loved participating in Operation Transformation’s 10@10

It was an exciting whole school event.

Student Success at the Leinster Schools Lifesaving Competition

Sadhbh from Ms.Hughes 4th class took part very successfully in the Leinster Schools Lifesaving competition in Belvedere College on Saturday 4th February. The competition is based on three different events and the culmulative score determine the overall winners in each age group.

The three events are resuscitation, line throw and ‘swim and tow’.

1.Resuscitation requires those competing to perform CPR.

2. Line throw is a dry land rescue event and tests the competitors ability to throw a line accurately and quickly.

3. ‘Swim and tow’ was Sadhbh’s best event on the day and she won a gold medal. It is a timed event. The competitor wears a t-shirt over his or her swim suit. They swim 25 metres to their ‘casualty’, and removes their t-shirt in order to tow the person they are rescuing 25 metres back to safety.

Sadhbh represented St. Brigid’s through her swimming club Poseidon Life Saving Club. In addition to winning a gold medal in swimming tow, Sadhbh won the silver medal overall at her level.

Congratulations and well done to Sadhbh. This is some achievement. These are important life skills.

Sadhbh framed