Springdale’s Active School Slogan:
DON’T JUST SIT, GO GET FIT!
Hi everyone!
We’re now into our second year of our Active Flag work and what an adventure it has been already! Last year we were so lucky to have an amazing Active School Committee, made up of members from 1st – 6th Class, who worked tirelessly to help us achieve our first flag! We need to thank them once again for all their hard work, leadership and ideas over the last year.
In case you need a little reminder, The Active School Flag is awarded to schools who “strive to achieve a physically educated and physically active school community. The process aims to get more schools, more active, more often.” Springdale has always been an active school, so we really were delighted to be awarded our Active School Flag in June last year.
2018 – 2019
This year, we have a brand new committee. Our 2018-2019 Committee is made up of children from Junior Infants to 6th Class and so far they have worked together brilliantly! Working alongside the children are Ms. Stafford, Mr. Vincent and Ms. Stirling. Check out our new Active School Committee here:
Did you know that it’s recommended that children get 60 minutes of exercise every day?
Check out our 2018-2019 ASF Activities below:
Establishing our new Committee:
Establishing our new 2018 – 2019 Committee was a really important job for us to do. Last year’s committee put a lot of work into writing a description of what skills, talents and interests were needed on the Committee. They then went from class to class to explain that we would be looking to put together our new committee. Lots of children were eager to join the team and we were so lucky to have so much interest!
Our new committee met for the first time in September 2018 and started to come up with a few ideas and plans.
This year, two of our senior members of the Active School Committee will act as secretary and chairperson of the committee and will be responsible for leading the meetings as well as writing the minutes. We look forward to seeing them take on their leadership roles!
Active Schools Noticeboard:
Our Active Schools Noticeboard has been updated with our new upcoming events and our PE Strand of the month. Check the board soon to see the new Active Lines rota up and running! Just under the noticeboard, we have an Active Schools Suggestion Box. If you have any great ideas about some activities you think we should get up to, pop your suggestion into the box and we’ll discuss it at our next meeting!
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Physical Education is an integral part of the curriculum and of life in Springdale. The curriculum comprises 6 strands: Aquatics, Athletics, Dance, Games, Gymnastics and Outdoor and Adventure. All classes are taught skills from a minimum of 5 of these strands each year. The Aquatics strand is covered in Springdale from 1st class – 6th class.
Each class gets a minimum of 1 hour P.E. teaching time each week.
In Springdale we are lucky to have a lot of sports and PE equipment. All of this is well organised and labelled so we can make the most of it! Thanks go to our Active Schools Committee members for keeping an eye on what equipment we have, ensuring it’s all working and letting us know if anything gets broken!
We are lucky to have so many local clubs and agencies who come to Springdale to introduce us to new sports as well as to coach us in sports we are already familiar with! See more about this in our ‘Partnerships’ section!
PHYSICAL ACTIVITY
Physical Activity is an important part of Springdale life. We love to encourage each other to be active, to share our successes and to teach each other new games to play or sports to try out. The full range of fundamental movement skills are permitted and encouraged in the yard. Here are a few ways in which we promote physical activity in our school:
Playground Leaders:
Active School Committee Members help to manage the equipment and activity zones in the yard and we encourage everyone to get involved in activities during break times. It’s easy to spot the committee in their blue ‘Playground Leaders’ bibs! You can find playground zone maps up around the school and on the windows!
Active Lines:
Each day, our Committee Members lead exercises for a few minutes at the end of big break. They take it in turns to change the activities for each week. They all lead the exercises, and also keep an eye out for classes who are working really hard with their active lines. The winning Active Lines class for the week get a certificate and some extra PE the next week as a reward!
Funky Fridays:
Do you like to dance? Well if you do, then Funky Fridays are for YOU! Each Friday, DJ Cahill pops on some music for us to dance to in the yard (sometimes there’s a bit of karaoke too!) It’s great fun for all involved, students and teachers alike. Haven’t heard the right song to get you dancing just yet? We have a suggestion box outside Ms. Crawte’s office for any song requests for the DJ.
Classroom Movement Breaks:
Our Active Schools Committee has designed some easy breaks for the classroom to get us moving throughout the day. These include:
- Lollipop Exercises
- Go Noodle
- Cosmic Yoga
- Squat Challenges
- Drop Everything and Dance
- The Irish Heart Foundation Busy Breaks
- 10 @ 10
Teachers and classes can choose lots of fun activities to do in their classrooms any time they feel like they need a wiggle!
European Week of Sport:
European Week of Sport took place from the 22nd to the 30th September 2018. To celebrate, we decided to take part in the Run Around Europe Challenge! Each class in Springdale chose a famous landmark in Europe to run to. Some of these landmarks were very, VERY far away so the classes had a lot of running to do! For this challenge, 1 lap of the yard counted as 1 kilometre. Have a look at the display board at the front door to see where each class has run to!
Upcoming Occasions and Events:
In Springdale we LOVE to celebrate special occasions and the first special occasion of the year was Hallowe’en! Not only did our PTA organise a fantastic Hallowe’en Sponsored Walk (which raised some much needed funds for our school), but our Active Committee organised some Hallowe’en Relay Races for the junior classes and a Quidditch Tournament for the senior classes!
Hallowe’en Relay Races:
Junior Infants to 3rd and 4th Class took part in some Pumpkin relay races. Each class split into 5 teams and ran, hopped, jumped, skipped or jogged backwards up to a basket full of pumpkin pieces! They collected a piece and brought it back to their team. Once all the pumpkin pieces had been collected, they dressed one of their team members up as a pumpkin and the pumpkin ran up to the end and back again! Check out some photos of our happy pumpkins below:
Quidditch:
4th Class to 6th Class took part in a Quidditch tournament inspired by Harry Potter. Our Active Committee members made broomsticks to fly on, Quidditch goals to shoot into and a snitch’s outfit that would be easily spotted in competition! Once the teams broke up into 3 Beaters, a Seeker, a Keeper and 2 Chasers, a snitch was chosen and the competition began! Check out the photos below of our Quidditch Tournament! We’re sure you’ll agree we have some very talented broomstick handlers in our school!
Partnerships
We are very lucky in Springdale to have so many local clubs and agencies who come to visit us in school! Some of these happen during school hours and others are available as an after-school activity.
We also take part in local sports events such as:
- The Leprechaun Cup (cricket)
- Basketball Ireland Leagues
- North Central Dublin Primary Schools Cross-Country Races
- Santry Sports
- Give Racism the Red Card Football Tournament for 5th Class
We’ll keep you up to date on all our activities as they come up, so keep checking back with us!
The Active School Committee