Welcome to the Active School Flag (ASF) section of our website.  The Active School Flag is awarded to schools who strive to achieve a physically educated and physically active school community. One of it's aims is to raise awareness, in the whole school community, of the need for physical activity in a healthy lifestyle. We are engaging in the active school process this year and hope to obtain our first Active Schools Flag. We have established our ASF team with our co-ordinator Mr Flanagan. Enjoy the photo album, you will see lots of activities committee members and more!
 

Our Active School Motto is:
‘Keep Active, Keep Cool, Even in St Columba’s School’  

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PE

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The school are striving to achieve a physically educated and physically active school community. With help from our teachers, students, parents and wider community we hope that in 2023 our school will be recognised as an official ‘Active School’. As always, when the school community puts our collective minds to something we can achieve big things. This will be no different. So with everyone’s help, ideas and support, we expect to be flying the Active School Flag with pride at the end of this school year.

• Each class is taught five different PE strands each year from Athletics, Aquatics, Dance, Gymnastics, Games, Outdoor and Adventure.

• Teachers make use of the PSSI lesson plans to guide their delivery of the Primary PE Curriculum.

• Specialist coaching in dancing and swimming is provided from 3rd-6th

• Every child’s progress in PE is discussed at parent/teacher meetings.

• Feedback about progress in PE is included in our annual school reports.

• An Annual Sports Day takes place in the last term of the year.

• School tours that are activity based are promoted throughout the school.

• Our school has a detailed inventory of equipment which is checked and updated with the assistance of the Active School Committee regularly.

• Our PE equipment and resources are clearly labelled, well organised and accessible and our school strives to make maximum use of the PE equipment available to us

 

 

Physical Activity

 

St Columba's has registered for the Active Flag and has formed an Active Flag Committee. The committee comprises of the ASF coordinator, pupils from Junior Infants to 6th classes and other members of the teaching staff. The committee will work together with teachers, parents and local agencies to enable the whole school community to become more physically active.

The pupils on the active schools committee have been given leadership roles:

• Active line leaders at the end of break

• Playground leaders

• Keep the P.E. store neat and tidy

• Carry out surveys

• Report any messages back to their class teachers and classmates

• Organise and help set up equipment for Sports day/ Be Active ASAP/ Santa Dash etc

• Organise equipment and look after their teams during 10@10

• Lead warm ups/ cool downs as part of the 'Be Active ASAP' programme. 

 

St Columba’s incorporates physical activity into school calendar events. For example:

• Autumn - Autumn Trails

• Halloween – Class Disco

• Christmas – Santa Dash

• Easter – Easter egg hunt

• Spring – Spring Trails

• National Spring Clean

• Maths week – maths trails

• ASW – Walk on Wednesday

• 10@10 

• Active Lines

• Operation Transformation 

• Daily Mile

Our School provides equipment for the children to use during break and lunch time as part of our Active Schools programme. Spongeballs and fun game ides are given to children as the Playground leaders help as much as possible. 

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As part of working towards our Active School Flag, we are taking part in a Running Challenge for 4 weeks. During this time, we build a running break into every day. It is an excellent way for children to learn about some of Ireland’s most famous landmarks and ideal for bringing learning outdoors. Class teachers will be given:

1. A map of Ireland’s famous landmarks

2. A class challenge chart where you can tick off each landmark as you run to it

3. A laminated Progress Chart where you can record your progress daily and weekly.

• The Challenge was completed at different times by different classes and on various routes throughout the day. 

• We also chose to focus on the strand of Athletics in PE while taking part in this challenge.

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Partnerships

Partnerships within and outside the school are an important aspect of the Active School Flag to promote a physically active school community.

 

One of the most important partnerships in the Active School Flag programme is with the pupils of the school. Our Active School committee do a great job promoting active initiatives in our school and ensuring that everyone is encouraged to be as active as possible! The team meet regularly with our teacher representatives to identify priorities, offer suggestions, problem-solve any issues and plan new ideas. Each committee member is in charge of liaising with designated classes in the whole to ensure that everyone’s feedback is taken on board. This ensures that the Active School Flag process is inclusive of everybody. The committee members are also very good at reminding their teachers to take movement breaks throughout the day.

 

To make sure that all pupils have their voices heard we have an Active School Week suggestions box in the hallway. Children can write down their ideas on a piece of paper and anonymously post it in the suggestions box. We welcome any ideas on how we can make our school more active! This was also a great way to incorporate more of the children’s ideas into our recent Active School Week!

 

We have a strong partnership with our local GAA club Na Fianna. Donal, a coach from Na Fianna, visits our school regularly throughout the year to provide coaching in football & hurling/camogie to each class. The children look forward to these sessions and always enjoy them immensely!

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Children from each class also enjoy Basketball with Praha, learning new skills and playing some fun games.

Fun Fitness takes place in two blocks over the year, children enjoy lots of different topics such as Boxercise, Gymnastics and lots more!

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There is always lots of interest in Hurling and Football teams and also attending the Santry Athletics Competitions organised by Cumann na mBunscol each Summer. The GAA team won in Croke Park and the hurling team made it all the way to the final. The students compete in long distance; shot putt; high jump; long jump; relay races; sprint races and long distance events. They practise hard at school & also attend some after school coaching sessions with teachers! Last year we were delighted to come away with a some medals.

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Active Week

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We kicked off our Active Week with a Wake Up! Shake Up! in assembly. It was only right that we started it as a whole school together. We even saw Mr Flanagan pulling off some moves. Every pupil from infants to 6threally enjoyed it. Every class was broken up into smaller groups where they learned and practiced new skills. The rest of the pupils were skipping, playing ball games . It was great to see all the staff and pupils in tracksuits and t-shirts. Thank you sun for shining down on us!

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Physical activity as homework

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Last year the students in our school received a number of physical activities to complete as part of their homework for the duration of active schools week.  Each child was given their own diary sheet to record the physical activity completed each day. For example if children were watching TV after school they were encouraged to do 2-3 minute circuits such as push ups crunches, squats etc. during the commercial breaks. Other activities include “Jump Your Way to Better Health” initiative where children performed a variety of jumping activities at home to help develop muscle and bone strength.

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Tuesday

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We were blessed with another beautiful day!  GoNoodle helped us with our Wake Up! Shake Up! this morning. Mr Flanagan’s kindly took the day out of class to organise circuits for us with help from his wonderful 2nd class. Every class had a taster of ten different stations which had sports like hockey, badminton and basketball. It was a real treat in the beautiful sun.

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Wednesday

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Today was a busy day. We started the morning with exercises outside in assembly. All the staff got involved.  Next we had our very busy active lunch breaks where boxing and soccer were the highlights.

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Thursday

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Starting the morning with exercise has been really enjoyable this week. It is a great way to get everyone awake! 2nd- 6thare busy coming up with active slogans and the junior end of the school are busy staying inside the lines for our active colouring competition. All prize winners will be announced tomorrow. We have been blessed with beautiful sunshine all week which has been an added treat to our active lunch breaks. After lunch the whole school gathered around our “Field of Dreams” for our much anticipated basketball game. First up were Ms Melvin’s dangerous devils who dared to beat our teacher  team.  Next up were Ms Mc Hughs girls who fancied their chances. However, our teachers  had other ideas. We were determined to stop the students. Luckily the win went our way. It was a great afternoon for all.

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Friday

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Our last day of Active School Week was not going to disappoint. Every class has incorporated lots of cross-curricular activities into their work this week. We encouraged all the pupils to get out and be active in the sun after school. After lunch we had our Sports Day. There were some great activities planned for the kids. This included an obstacle course, uni hoc, basketball, soccer, volleyball, parachute. It was a great day for all the kids and they had a blast!

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